Lileks has some thoughts. He also comments on the vapid stupidities of the left in the matter:

This is not the time to lament the dictator, but of course that's what many did. As his appointed hour grew nigh, the humanitarians of the world found a new champion.

"He held the country together!" Well, if President Bush gassed New York and California and outlawed the Democratic Party, he could impose the same sort of remarkable cohesion.

"He was a counterweight to Iran!" Yes. But perhaps it's better to have a struggling democracy with American bases as the counterweight. If the U.S. had occupied Iraq in the 1980s, it's doubtful that millions of Iraqis would have been sent to their death so Ronald Reagan could wear a military uniform and wave a shotgun for the cameras.

"We put him in power!" Hmm. How did that work, exactly? Right: We smuggled him into the country in Donald Rumsfeld's steamer trunk with instructions to buy Russian weapons and a French reactor, then invade countries we really liked.

"He was relentlessly opposed to Islamist terrorists!" Except for those he paid and sheltered, of course. If he was sending money to people who blew up buses in New York instead of Jerusalem, people might have been more exercised.

What bothers me most is how supporters of nut-job cleric al-Sadr hijacked Saddam's execution to enhance the politial stature of that mullah.

Reports are that the video showing chants of "Sadr, Sadr, Sadr" as Saddam dies was taken by a top aide to al-Maliki, the guy chosen by those same blue fingers much praised at that State of the Union address. As with our entire Iraqi debacle, Saddam's execution is "all good" in theory but how did we FUBAR the execution so badly?

...how did we FUBAR the execution so badly?

We didn't, Bill. In case you didn't notice, the Iraqi government runs Iraq, insane nonsense about "Blood for Oil" and "Halliburton Imperialism!" notwithstanding.

We "gave" custody of Saddam to al-Maliki didn't we? Perhaps we should have gotten assurances that the PR from the execution would be more favorable before making the prisoner transfer.

On the larger point, Saddam was certainly a monster but trading Saddam for Sadr seems a marginal "win" at best.

Is al-Maliki Sadr's man? Time will tell but I fear that he is.

Lest I be accused of unmitigated Bush-bashing, allow to praise the decision (reported) that General Casey shall be replaced with General Petraeus.

Well done, General Petraeus did good work in Mosul.

We "gave" custody of Saddam to al-Maliki didn't we? Perhaps we should have gotten assurances that the PR from the execution would be more favorable before making the prisoner transfer.

Perhaps we could to that, if we were sovereign in Iraq. This is a point you continue to miss.

We held him because the Iraqi government judged that we could hold him more securely than they could. Once his execution was imminent, and they requested the handover, we had no choice, unless we wanted to claim that we were in charge, and not they.

Do you ever read what you write?

Of course Bill reads what he writes. That's a rather irritating question, Rand. And of course the Iraqi government isn't supreme in Iraq - it's nothing but a leech sucking on American resources and doing it's pontification on democracy in the Green Zone while setting itself up for an alternate future through third parties elsewhere. If Rand were right, we should hand over control of the Green Zone to the so-called Iraqi government. Maybe then Rand will be right on his claim of a sovereign Iraqi government. The Iraqi government is a figment of our wishful thinking and will fragment the moment our money and troops leave. They know it and we know it, so the talk of sovereignty is just a fig leaf to cover our asses; asses that have created a huge mess. As someone joked about Bush recently. If anyone ever axiomized on white anglo saxon supremacy, Bush has provided its perfect repudiation.

Great line:

Iraq's problems will be solved when the warring groups are suppressed once and for all, but that sort of horrible force plays poorly on CNN International. Besides, the Ethiopians are rather busy at the moment.

Saddam died by the rule of law. The guards that tried to make their own propaganda have been investigated and arrests made. Progress is occurring while progressives stick to tired rhetoric.

Rand writes:
"He was relentlessly opposed to Islamist terrorists!" Except for those he paid and sheltered, of course. If he was sending money to people who blew up buses in New York instead of Jerusalem, people might have been more exercised.

(Now Rand shows his true colors as a Neo-con.
Saddam Hussein had no connection to Al-Qaeda and 9-11.
Now if Hussein was paying to blow up buses in
Israel, then Israel should have taken a few of their
F-16's and blown up a few Iraqi buses.
If Hussein had been blowing up Buses in NYC,
I'm sure lots of American's would have been
excercised, but the fact is he didn't and hadn't.
Simberg the Neo-con sees no difference between
Israeli buses and American buses. He sees an
attack on israel as an attack on America.

It is that confusion that causes neocon's to
lack fidelity and faithfulness to America.

Here comes Anonyomus with his unique brand of strawman Jew-Bashing.

And anonymous tries once again to link Saddam with 9/11, something the left continues to accuse the right of without ever finding proof. And once again we have to say that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, but a lot to do with other terrorism going on throughout the region.

Rewrite history all you want.

GWB and the neo-cons sold the Iraq war as part of 9-11,
everyone knows it, and it's for that reason they took
action on november 7th.

You will probably be shocked to read this, by a once mighty defender of our neo-con adventure, and a leader in the 101st Fighting Keyboardists:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/04/AR2007010401347.html

Charles Krauthammer, someone I mostly can't agree with, washes his hands off our very expensive fig leaf aka the sovereign Iraqi government!

One must note that Krauthammers new tack, evidenced in his other recent pieces, as is also the case for several other neo-cons, is that the "fault" is in no way "ours" for the cess-pool we have to wallow in, it is the intrinsic cultural ineptitude and sectarianism of the Arabs. Of course the Arabists at State could have told him that a few years ago if he wasn't so intent on accusing them of conniving against Israel.

Talk about rewriting history and selling folks on a lie, now 100 hours equals 3 to 4 weeks. Oh the next two years will be a cornicopia of political humor.

GWB and the neo-cons sold the Iraq war as part of 9-11, everyone knows it

You're a javascript rantbot and everyone knows it.