The Weeks Review

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Saddam finally received what the likes of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao and Arafat managed to avoid - temporal justice for crimes committed against humanity. He was hanged as the execrable criminal that he was, reportedly clutching the Quran, though from all accounts he was not a particularly religious man. He was more of a secular mass-murderer rather than the much more common religious variety. In the end, I guess the Quran unites murderers of all stripes.

UPDATE: Victor Davis Hanson offers his inimitable perspective:

One of the most depressing sights of the entire Saddam postmortem were the clips shown ad nauseam of all the dignitaries, diplomats, and obsequious reporters who in years past trekked to Baghdad to flatter or to pay homage to this creepy mass murderer. Watching a younger Kofi Annan, Lindberg like, pump Saddam's hand, smiling and offering blandishments was sickening. Surely the world can learn from this sordid spectacle, and not repeat the same mistake with Ahmadinejad and Assad. Their demise will come soon enough, and only the clips and outtakes of the appeasers will remain.

It is getting so that the cheap anti-American rhetoric from Europe and the Middle East about our purported complicity in killing a mass murderer should be worn as a badge of honor. We caught him, turned him over for a transparent trial, and ensured he would never murder again. So the question remains: where is the true morality-building this killer's bunkers, selling him weapons, taking his oil-or putting him in a noose?

Nothing was more evident of the moral impoverishment of the Palestinians than their collective lamentation over the fate of this mass killer of the Kurds and Arabs. We gave the Palestinian Authority hundreds of millions of dollars for housing, schools, and security and they hate us; Saddam gave them a few thousand dollars as bounty for suicide murderers and they loved him.

That says it all.

Indeed it does. Theirs is a "culture" hopelessly mired in a dark and violent past where blood lust and violence are the currency and killers such as Saddam are revered as heroes. They have created a "win win" situation in their minds whereas even in abject defeat, they achieve glorious martyrdom.