So, many political blogs posted this weekend about how the execution of Saddam was a desperate bid by the Americans to show that they could finish at least one job. Sure, the trial was a complete sham (it should have been held in the Hague… but then they wouldn’t have gotten the death penalty, now would they?), but the verdict was fair, right? At least the American could show they can execute a guy right.

Not so much. Juan Cole, in Salon:

The tribunal also had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam’s hanging. It was a slap in the face to Sunni Arabs. This weekend marks Eid al-Adha, the Holy Day of Sacrifice, on which Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son for God. Shiites celebrate it Sunday. Sunnis celebrate it Saturday –- and Iraqi law forbids executing the condemned on a major holiday. Hanging Saddam on Saturday was perceived by Sunni Arabs as the act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar.

The timing also allowed Saddam, in his farewell address to Iraq, to pose as a “sacrifice” for his nation, an explicit reference to Eid al-Adha. The tribunal had given the old secular nationalist the chance to use religious language to play on the sympathies of the whole Iraqi public.

We managed a two-fer! Not only did we piss off one gigantic part of the Iraqi populace by defiling their holy day, but we allowed Saddam to position himself as a martyr! Good going folks!

I am so disgusted by the incompetence and willful and accidental disregard for others by this administration. They want to make things worse. That’s the only way I can understand it.