Saddam Sentenced to Death

Did anyone really expect any different? The true wonder is that he was actually allowed to live to see trial (Saddam was always too much of a coward to take Der Führer's way out).

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Saddam Hussein was convicted and sentenced Sunday to hang for crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single Shiite town, as the ousted leader, trembling and defiant, shouted "God is great!"

As he, his half brother and another senior official in his regime were convicted and sentenced to death by the Iraqi High Tribunal, Saddam yelled out, "Long live the people and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!" Later, his lawyer said the former dictator had called on Iraqis to reject sectarian violence and refrain from revenge against U.S. forces.

So even in his final days Saddam can't keep his representatives from blatantly veering from the truth. In any case, don't expect the Sunnis to take this lying down:

In Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, 1,000 people defied the curfew and carried pictures of the city's favorite son through the streets. Some declared the court a product of the U.S. "occupation forces" and condemned the verdict.

"By our souls, by our blood we sacrifice for you Saddam" and "Saddam your name shakes America."

I've been warning about the political risks associated with ethnic fractionalization for nearly three years now, and Iraq's ongoing (albeit undeclared) civil war as well as the Sunni reaction to this verdict shows how prescient my warnings at the time were. If we want to understand why certain countries are basketcases of strife and poverty, we needn't look to stupid theories about IQ based on junk data put out by racist liars, as the capacity of ethnic chauvinism to blind people to the worst sins of those on "their" side is in itself a perfectly adequate explanation: just as white racists prefer to pretend that South Africa was a land of peace and plenty for all before black rule, Iraq's Sunnis will never admit their "favorite son" was a corrupt, megalomanical butcher who led his nation to ruin, and rather than working for the prosperity of all Iraqis, they will prefer to keep fighting to be the top men on a sinking ship.