I realize this might sound a bit out of line, but am I the only one who expected Saddam Hussein’s execution to be a little, I don’t know, classier? When the first photos of the execution were leaked on PerezHilton.com, I was a little taken aback. I didn’t think his execution would look like the Kennedy Center Honors, or even The New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, but I was really surprised by how shoddy the whole thing was. I guess I assumed there would be a clean room with a single, stoic executioner—an older gentleman with a face of some distinction, perhaps with a jagged scar running from one cloudy, dead eye down to his jawline, and dressed in some kind of uniform befitting an executioner i.e. black cargo pants and a “Punisher” skull t-shirt.
What I didn’t expect was that they’d just carelessly hand the coldhearted job over to the first three guys who showed up wearing ski masks. MTV has a more rigorous screening process for contestants on “Yo Momma!” The executioners weren’t even dressed alike. Isn’t this sort of a big deal over there, even if it is a bizarre and confusing resolution to a completely misdirected international crisis. (Sincerely, there was something about the news of this execution that really nailed the absurdity of our invasion of Iraq that the five thousand other pieces of compellingly absurd evidence have failed to drive home. It’s hard to know how to feel about it. On one hand, I’m happy any time someone is publicly hanged. But on the other, I can’t help thinking they got the wrong guy, or at least the right guy at the wrong time, for the wrong crime. It’s a bit like being mugged by some teenagers, and then spending the next three-plus years hunting down the Zodiac killer as revenge. Or like seeing a trailer for a movie about the most prolific serial killer in history, then racing to see the film only to discover it’s actually a big dumb movie about an angry croccodile. But thank god that would never happen.)
Assuming it would be an important local, if not world event, why does it look like a couple of strays from the Symbionese Liberation Army just pulled Saddam Hussein out of a cargo van, and hurriedly dragged him into an after-school rec center to be hanged on their lunch break? I wouldn’t want to accuse Iraqi executioners of performing a rush job, but I’m pretty sure one of those ski masks still had a price tag hanging from it.
Etiquette question: when do I remove Saddam Hussein from my MySpace friends?
