Saddam hanging flashback: One year ago, handwringers at the New York Times predicted Saddam would become a Martyr

Saddam Hussein was hanged one year ago. The hanging itself was awkward, and a cellphone video of the hanging implied the guards mocked Saddam before hanging him. Within hours, the media handwringers were beside themselves, fretting that Saddam Hussein's "botched" hanging would turn him into a martyr.


The New York Times devoted an entire article to this theme. The article, written by Hassan Fattah, is chock full of quotes from experts and man-on-the-street types, all of whom predicted Saddam's botched hanging would result in martyrdom across the Middle East.


The article includes this quote from Hosni Mubarak, President of Egypt:

“No one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was executed. They turned him into a martyr."

Here is a quote from Roula Haddad, 33, a Lebanese Christian:

“Suddenly we forgot that he was a dictator and that he killed thousands of people. All our hatred for him suddenly turned into sympathy, sympathy with someone who was treated unjustly by an occupation force and its collaborators.”

Here is Ahmed el-Ghamrawi, a former Egyptian ambassador to Iraq:

“He died a strong president and lived as a strong president. This is the image people are left with.”

Here is Jordanian journalist Muhammad Abu Rumman:

“For the vast majority Saddam is a martyr, even if he made mistakes in his first years of rule. He cleansed himself later by confronting the Americans and by rejecting to negotiate with them.”

There's more. But you get the idea. A brutal murderous thug who should have been scorned after his death will now achieve hero status, all because the US-sponsored execution was botched and the dictator was humiliated. Yeah right.

The passage of time has proven them completely wrong. The New York Times hand-wringers, the geniuses quoted in the article, all dead wrong. Today, very few people visit Saddam's grave. Some days, just 2 or 3 visitors come. The thug didn't achieve hero status, and the hysterical media was proven wrong.