I wanted him removed but not like that....

I did something a couple of nights ago that I wouldn't recommend to anyone else.
Out of solitary drunken boredem, I watched something that is only available to witness on the Internet. I saw something " deplorable ", something that was " completely wrong ", something " shameful and undignified ", something " sordid and lacking in any moral code ".
I watched a man die. Violently.
Was I proud of myself? No.
Was I ashamed of myself? Yes... well, no not really. Combine a curiosity that needed to be satisfied with a state of intoxication, and well... these things happen don't they? We are none of us perfect.
Of course, the whole experience is made a good deal easier when the poor bastard on the wrong end of the execution was by all accounts, not a particularly decent person. That's what our Western media and our politicians have consistently told us for at least the past 15-20 years.

So why all the subsequent uproar? Why the outrage, where did it all suddenly sprout up from? Why is it every time I connect to any form of media, I find myself fighting against a quicksand of slimy, unprincipled rhetoric?
And who is it all coming from? None other than the very people who had carefully trained us to hate Saddam in the first place.
" Fear this man " they told us. "
The big nasty bogieman " they said.
" If you invite him to your little boy's birthday party, he'll sneak mustard gas into all the party-bags. "
" Amalgamate all the Bond villains into one Frankenstein-esque monster and it would still have nothing on this guy. "
So we bombed the living crap out of Baghdad, Dresden-style but alas, Saddam was not among the heavy casualties. He wasn't meant to be, far better to conveniently capture him in December 2003 just prior to Bush's campaign trail for a second term of office.
When they found him and paraded his dishevelled, unshaven form infront of the World's media... well he didn't look particularly scary did he? Didn't look capable of sticking a liquorice allsort in a party-bag, let alone mustard gas. " String the evil bastard up " we all cried.

And 'string him up' they most certainly have.
I would have loved a bit of honesty at this point. Instead all I hear are the words "deplorable", "shameful", "carried out in an appalling manner", "completely wrong" blah blah waffle political points-scoring tedium...
These are the kind of reactions I wanted to hear:

" Mr Blair, what is your reaction to the sudden execution of Saddam Hussein and the filming of it on a mobile phone? "
" Well naturally I was appalled by what I saw. The picture quality was diabolical, I don't know about you guys but I could barely see a thing. I'm sitting in the armchair moaning about it and Cherie's saying what do you expect from a Samsung, and I'm saying you can scratch my balls if that's even a Samsung, more like a bloody bottom of the range Sagem if you ask me. The sound was rubbish too, and I think it's a sad state of affairs when no-one even thinks to put subtitles on there, I'm sure they did tell him to "go to hell" but not being fluent in Arabic how the hell can I tell that for myself? As a government I think we would prefer to distance ourselves from the kind of people who carried this out without even taking a decent camcorder with them with a low-light mode and someone who can hold the damn thing still. "

" Mr Brown, how do you feel about the events surrounding Saddam's execution? "
" I will of course comment on this at the appropriate time, when I have seen the footage for myself. Unfortunately Blockbuster have informed me that the video is not as of yet available. Until then the popcorn is, as they say, on ice. "

" Mr Prescott, have you seen...? "
" Yep, larffed me bleedin' arse off. "

" Ladies and gentleman, the President will now make a brief speech, following which he will answer questions from the floor...but not too many as it's already way past his bedtime. Mr President? "........
" Yesterday, we witnessed the end of a brutal dictator who had inflicted a brutal regime upon his people. It was a tremendous evening had by all, Laura and myself were joined by Dick and his wife, Condoleeza and Donald. Pops dropped by later in the evening so we rewound the tape and watched it again with him.....then we rewound the tape again and I make no apology for this, we watched the scumbag dangle again.... then Laura collected the apple pies from the oven whilst Dick cracked open the wine and then we rewound the tape and watched it again....then the girls came down the stairs saying they couldn't sleep so we rewound the tape and watched it again..... "

But oh no, all of a sudden it's all so deplorable isn't it. None of us would ever associate ourselves with such an act.
What did our holier-than-thou leaders expect? Did they think that in a country brought to its knees by an endless history of brutality, bloodshed, dictatorships, Shock-and-Awe bombings, and subsequent undesired occupation, that such an execution was going to follow any code of humanity. Did they expect a Monty Python sketch where Saddam gets poked with the...soft cushions!
Perhaps Blair, Brown and Straw had had designs on being present at the execution, standing with heads bowed, clutching wreaths as if they were back at the Cenotaph.
I can picture them now, standing at the foot of the scaffold - " It's nothing personal Saddam old boy but you were a bit of an asshole weren't you. Okay boys, and a 1-2-3-4... for he's a jolly good fe-ellow, for he's a jolly good fe-e-ellow, for he's a.....

We all know that the manner in which it was carried out was less than dignified. We know that it was sick and depraved to film it on some dodgy mobile phone.
We don't need to be told that by the politicians who brought the whole sorry affair about in the first place.
Deplorable? Yes Tony it was, and I'll tell you what else is deplorable. The elderly dying in hospital corridors because you can't provide a decent health service. Sending our troops ill-equipped into the deserts like lambs to the slaughter for some corporate cause. And whilst we're on the subject of tasteless Internet executions, the dessertion of Kenneth Bigley in his hour of need. How's that for "deplorable", "shameful" and "completely wrong".

As for Saddam, well he was the spider in Tony Blair's bath. Someone else did the dirty work of removing it, and when they finally did it, he didn't like the way it was carried out.

He wanted him removed, but not like that.