Thoughts On A Hanging

Today at 10:37pm the first interruption of regular television programming was made to announce that at the dawning of morning in Iraq, the people would wake to a new day without the looming brutal presence of Saddam Hussein. He had been hanged on the eve of Id, a holy day for Muslims recognizing the faith that Abraham had on his way up the mountain called “Where The Lord Will Provide (Adonai-yireh),” or “Where The Lord Appears,” to take his son’s life. This is all less than a day after the Iraqi leaders made their decision for his death final. Saddam would die slowly and suffering, not by a gunfire execution as he requested.

Although I know that Saddam Hussein has been the cause of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives massacred and murdered, I also couldn’t help thinking of all the innocent lives that had become consequences of war at the hands of the U.S. led military invasion for peace and democracy. Honestly, I felt sad because the fact is, although Hussein turned out to be a horrific person who did atrocious things to his own people, he was still human: a human who didn’t know Christ, but chose an earthly life of sin, of which the undeniable consequence is an eternity of suffering and continual death. I felt sad watching the news reporter talk over flashing video clips of the supposed noose and platform used to execute Saddam and two other government officials, one camera angle after another, after another. I was sad because although he is dead, the war in Iraq will not come halting to a magic end.

His death doesn’t necessarily mean peace or a solution to the conflict. In fact, Saddam had been captured by U.S. forces months ago, and peace had not even begun to settle in. The reality is there are many Saddam supporters who will be up in arms. At 10:37pm eastern standard time, I thought to myself, millions of Iraqis will wake from their night’s slumber to the news that either their leader had been tragically martyred, or their dictator had been victoriously overcome.

So now Saddam Hussein is dead. Even before this, U.S. news broadcasts had already begun to create “The Life and Death of This Dictator” stories and were merely awaiting the first knowledge of the official judgment. They will forget to tell how the Royal Hussein family was once allied with U.S. Reagan and Bush Sr. era governments and economic interests, and how they even own land in America. They will forget to describe the intricate soap opera-like details of how Saddam danced with former allies to maintain international political and financial power.

Although I realize sin has, and should have, a very gruesome end, I feel sad at the hanging death of Saddam Hussein only because it marks an era where men, human beings, have set an international world stage to execute and be executed, hang and be hanged to death. This alone, serving justice. Not the complete truth. Not all guilty actors holding onto their own faults and consequences. And not peace. I’m not sure if it’s ironic that the Iraqi government rushed to kill Saddam just before daylight on the eve of Id, the Muslim holy day reverencing the faith that saved the life of Abraham’s son.

“…I know about Hitler, and I know Japan wanted half the world, but that
doesn’t mean we shouldn’t mourn war anyway, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t
feel a grief at the terrible ways conflicts are negotiated in a world absent God.”

-Donald Miller
“Children of Chernobyl”
p.79 Searching for God Knows What