Bad Scene

The more I read about the "investigation" the Iraqi government is going to launch into the circumstances of Saddam Hussein's execution, the more appalled I get, and I thought I'd hit my "appalled" limit a long time ago. A government that runs an execution of this sort is not really worthy of being called a government. And remember, we're soon going to be sending more soldiers to Iraq in order to protect and strengthen a regime that operates like hoodlums when it has the eyes of the entire world watching its behavior. From the WaPo:

Iraqi officials said a committee from the Interior Ministry would likely question everyone, including senior Iraqi officials, who was present at the hanging, where witnesses mocked and jeered the ousted president as he stood at the gallows. Hours later, grainy video of the event, taken with a cellphone camera, was broadcast around the world, bringing more pressure on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to take action....

U.S. officials have declined to comment publicly, but have privately expressed concern at the hastiness of the execution, which came just four days after an appeals court upheld Hussein's death sentence.

The video was the latest example of how amateurs using modern technology are exposing abuses and holding the powerful to account. The investigation, officials said, would focus not only on who hurled the taunts but also on how the video was leaked, damaging the government's credibility. Maliki's political adviser, Sadiq al-Rikabi, said the prime minister was "disappointed about that film."

An investigation of a circus crime run by clowns is not likely to discover that it was the guy with the giant round red nose that did it, but it's a sure bet that whoever the real culprit was, he was wearing big floppy shoes.

And note this sentence from the WaPo article: "The video was the latest example of how amateurs using modern technology are exposing abuses and holding the powerful to account."

Wha? How do they know the motives of guy who took the footage? Would even the Pajamas Media geniuses go so far out on a limb with such citizen journalism happy horseshit as does the WaPo here? (For a perhaps more hardheaded perspective on this question, Josh has some suspicions.)