iainjclark's Mysterious World

If the horror of Saddam's regime could be found in the cold-blooded, calculated nature of its murders as much as in their volume, there's a sad continuity about images of Saddam surrounded by simpering state functionaries who are tying fabric and rope around his neck. Regimes like Saddam's corrupt the polities they rule, and the nature of the West's invasion and occupation has hardly rejected the lack of respect for human life which characterises that corruption, at work every day on the burning streets of Baghdad. I don't find sadness the naive reaction to this event; it's a cheap shot, but for me Bush's is the naive reaction.