Saddam Hussein no Sunday Telegraph
"How did he last so long?" "[...] Yet, as he faced his hooded executioners yesterday, Saddam may have drawn some satisfaction from the fact that his defeats have granted his enemies only hollow victories: he is dead, but the Bush family and Tony Blair, along with their armies, have been made to suffer, too.
Western leaders and the forces of moderation in Iraq hope that yesterday's execution will mark the beginning of a new and democratic era for a country that has been gripped by near civil war for the three years since the Iraqi president was toppled. They hope, too, that his execution will send a message to the world that no dictator can flout international law, or inflict genocide and mass human rights abuses on his own people, without retribution.
Saddam's supporters, though, will undoubtedly seek to avenge his death. They will claim that the continuing widespread bloodshed in Iraq is proof that such an ethnically, religiously and culturally diverse country can only be united by a ruthless strongman.
In the years ahead, the world will be as divided by the legacy that Saddam has left his country and the Middle East as it was over the merits, or otherwise, of his 69-year life."
Western leaders and the forces of moderation in Iraq hope that yesterday's execution will mark the beginning of a new and democratic era for a country that has been gripped by near civil war for the three years since the Iraqi president was toppled. They hope, too, that his execution will send a message to the world that no dictator can flout international law, or inflict genocide and mass human rights abuses on his own people, without retribution.
Saddam's supporters, though, will undoubtedly seek to avenge his death. They will claim that the continuing widespread bloodshed in Iraq is proof that such an ethnically, religiously and culturally diverse country can only be united by a ruthless strongman.
In the years ahead, the world will be as divided by the legacy that Saddam has left his country and the Middle East as it was over the merits, or otherwise, of his 69-year life."
Andrew Alderson and Adam Lusher, Sunday Telegraph, 31 de Dezembro 2006.
"The decline and fall of Saddam Hussein has been too tawdry to pass muster as a Shakespearian tragedy. Its protagonist was too crass a character, more Don Corleone than Coriolanus. This play has been part Marlowe, part Brecht: a cross between The Massacre at Paris and The Threepenny Opera. Like the Duc de Guise in Marlowe's bloodthirsty drama, Saddam was responsible for more than enough mass murder to justify his own violent end. Unlike Macheath in Brecht's musical, Saddam was not pardoned in the last minute before his execution, but his death seems to pose a version of Brecht's old question: «Who is the bigger criminal: he who robs a bank, or he who founds one?»"
Niall Ferguson, Sunday Telegraph, 31 de Dezembro 2006.
Fernando Martins 13:31
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