AMMAN, Jordan, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Arab press roundup for Jan. 3:
Arab newspapers commented Wednesday on the execution of toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, with many condemning the move, the timing and the way it was done and broadcast to the public. Jordan's independent al-Ghad said in a commentary his executioners had turned Saddam into a legend, adding the "last scene is what will remain in the memory; and in the last scene, Saddam appeared a leader and his executioners appeared small, hateful sectarians." The mass-circulation daily described the "last scene" as a "disaster on Iraq", implanting sectarian divisions and showing Saddam as a victim, while his executioners appeared as killers driven by revenge and certain political agendas that don't care about Iraq and its future. If a democratic state had put the man to death, things would be different, it argued, adding that the slogans chanted by his sectarian slayers were a moment of revenge, not justice that builds countries. It complained that America, Israel and Iran were happy with his execution, saying that Iran and its allies turned the end of Saddam's dictatorship into the loss of Iraq. "Saddam ruled his people with fire and iron, he persecuted and killed; but those who killed him are also persecuting and killing. It's a link in a chain of repression, whose protagonists change but the crimes continue," it said. The paper said the Arabs will remain absent while their countries "burn with the culture of takfeer and sectarianism. Iraq is lost as they watch, and Lebanon and Syria will also be lost while they just watch." It said it hoped that Saddam's execution in this demeaning manner will be the alarm that will wake up the Arabs to the size of the danger threatening the Arab world.
--
The London-based al-Quds al-Arabi said the U.S. administration will not be able to convince people it is not responsible for choosing the day of Saddam's execution to fall on the first day of Islam's Eid al-Adha feast because a sovereign Iraqi government chose the date. It noted the Iraqi government cannot be sovereign when there are more than 150,000 American troops in the country, adding that the U.S. forces had handed Saddam over to his executioners. The independent Palestinian-owned daily argued that the Iraqi official who filmed the execution and the insults hurled at Saddam by supporters of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government before he was hanged deserves thanks because he "destroyed the campaign orchestrated by the American media experts to benefit from the execution, which brought opposite and disastrous results to the United States and its attempts to win over the minds and hearts of Muslims." What is certain, it continued to say, is that this official did not intend to harm the Americans and their allied sectarian Iraqi government when he distributed the footage on the internet. The new Iraq, it opined, is a sectarian one, where its Iraqi rulers and American occupiers are consumed by hatred, saying the execution footage is new evidence to this obvious reality.
--
Another London-based daily, al-Hayat, commented the exchange of accusations between the Americans and Iraqi rulers on Saddam's execution shows that Washington is responsible since it could have insisted on abiding by the new constitution that calls for three signatures on executions and bans them during religious holidays. The Saudi-financed paper said the American claims they were angered by Maliki's government hastiness in the execution is part of the American administration's political media campaign geared towards the American pe-ople and the Arabs. Washington, it added, was seeking to get rid of Saddam as quickly as possible for internal and historic reasons since his "murder" means humiliating those who oppose the American plan and "burying the secret of the conspiracy that started with the (Iraqi) invasion of Kuwait." The daily, distributed in many Arab capitals, said what the Shiite rulers in Iraq and their American allies did not expect is that "this brutal manner in which Saddam was executed has created an Arab and Sunni unity inside and outside Iraq, and increased Washington's crisis." It stressed that after Maliki's boasting over the "barbaric execution of Saddam, the U.S. government's approval of the hanging and filming it in a way that violates American and humanitarian principles, we must stop talking about American political mistakes in Iraq. What is happening in this country is a filthy and deliberate scheme." The daily insisted Saddam's execution shows that Washington is exercising unprecedented savagery and supports a group of extremist Shiites to implement the neo-cons' so-called new Iraq. "What is this Iraq after all that is happening and what democracy is this promised by America and Maliki's gang?" it asked.
-
Kuwait's al-Rai al-Aam said in a commentary that with the exception of the Iraqi and Kuwaiti people, most other people were very unhappy and depressed about Saddam's execution. It added while most of these Arabs know that Saddam was a tyrant who committed many crimes, they still sympathize with him and see in him a legendary hero. "This is expected, because the personality of the Arab has historically admired a person who can control and subdue others," it claimed. The pro-government daily complained that many of those who were upset by Saddam's hanging on the first day of Eid al-Adha tried to play on the tune of sectarian sedition by considering his execution as a provocation of the Sunni sentiments. "Although it is clear that Saddam was not concerned over being a Sunni, there are those who responded accordingly," it opined. And, the daily added, although Saddam's execution did not come because he was a Sunni but because he committed crimes that deserve death, "matters inside the hall (of the gallows) should have been controlled so that what was said during the execution would not have had sectarian implications." It stressed that sectarian sensitivities have reached a high point in the region when the execution of Saddam raises so many objections. "This crucial situation shows that it is in the interests of all to be distressed by sectarian sedition, and the key to that is to work on the stability and security of Iraq, because if Iraq sneezes, everyone else will catch a cold."
