If you want to understand why many people feel the West has a death wish these days, you had only to look at yesterday's international reaction to the execution of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. While paying various degrees of lip service to the fact Saddam was a mass murderer, what really bugged the politicians and bureaucrats? They were incensed that Saddam had been executed instead of sentenced to life in prison. I haven't seen anyone bring up that fact that one of Sammy's nephews who was sentenced to life in prison busted out about a week before the Head Cheese took the high jump. No group of hard boyz is going to bust Sammy out of conference with Himmler.
Yep, that was the big concern for politicians and government officials in, as the AP and CP wire services reported yesterday, "Chile, Spain, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Switzerland, the Ukraine (and) Netherlands", plus Germany, Finland, Russia and even key "coalition of the willing" partner Great Britain.
I suppose there's a certain example there for heads of state, but I also suspect that if it had been Pinochet there wouldn't have been nearly as much grumbling.
In Canada, the office of Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay issued a terse, one-line statement noting: "Canada joins other nations in supporting the desire of Iraq's leaders and citizens for a peaceful and prosperous future." That was so innocuous, it could have doubled as Canada's New Year's greeting to Iraq. But at least Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government -- as far as we could tell -- didn't feel compelled to inform the world that it too opposed the death penalty for Saddam, given that Canada no longer believes in it.
Canada is also, presumably, opposed to wood chippers as a method of disposing of citizenry who get on the bad side of Ottawa.
Understandably, the Vatican denounced Saddam's execution as "tragic" and while we don't agree, we respect that the Vatican is coming at this from deeply held and consistent religious beliefs which hold all life sacred. But for the rest, there is something incredibly patronizing in all this tut-tutting, which at the same time spectacularly misses the point about what is at stake in Iraq, perhaps deliberately so.
Saddam was fairly tried in an Iraqi court, judged by Iraqis and executed by them for crimes against Iraqis. He received far more "justice" than he ever granted those he massacred.
Who are we to judge the Iraqis on how they chose to deal with their own tyrant? And why so much concern in the West about Saddam's execution when, for so long, we stood silent while Saddam imposed the death penalty on Iraqis both inside and outside his kangeroo courts?
Focusing on the sentence rather than on the enormity of Saddam's crimes seems a deliberate and cowardly way for countries to appease those within their own borders, who, for whatever vile reasons, opposed Saddam's execution not because they favoured life in prison for him, but because they considered him a hero.
Less and less in the West these days -- thanks to the insidious doctrine of moral equivalence -- do we seem capable of unequivocally condemning evil, even when it is staring us right in the face. Rest assured, though, that our enemies are watching our timid, politically correct reactions. And learning. And plotting.