[acropolis]

i'm not sure if this is how it works in the UK, but in the US, friday night is when you do things that you want ignored by the news. the news cycle runs monday to friday, and by the time monday rolls around, stuff that happens friday night is old news and is basically never reported.

couple that with NFL Week 17 football on sunday, college football bowl games, all the new years bullshit, and the inevitable endless reams of Gerald Ford file footage, and we had a major astronomical alignment of stars for everyone on earth to do absolutely anything and have it completely forgotten about two days later. wanted to "borrow" the mona lisa*? well, you had your chance.

that this was done for purely political reasons goes without saying. obviously 'The White House declined to comment on the timing.
"That is a matter for the Iraqi people, we are observers to that process. They are a sovereign government and they will make their own decisions regarding carrying out justice," spokesman Scott Stanzel said in Crawford, Texas.' (Reuters), but 'The time was agreed upon during a meeting Friday between U.S. and Iraqi officials, said the adviser, who declined to be quoted by name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.' (AP).

but it doesn't matter. while it's mildly interesting that the white house believes it's political interests are served by this matter disappearing down the memory hole, more relevant is what effect this will have in iraq.

and partly i'm in agreement with dante. the 'martyry' people won't care about this. in addition, it's hard to imagine that much more violence in iraq than what is already going on.

as to the wrongness of killing saddam, during the night last night somewhere between fifty and perhaps a few hundred iraqis were dragged from their homes, tortured, mutilated, and shot. saddam won't make me lose any sleep. tbh, the others aren't making me lose any sleep either, but that might be because i'm an asshole.

*honest to god, the first analogy i came up with was "if you ever wanted to assassinate a major world leader without anyone noticing, that was your chance". then i noticed that it was, in fact, probably inappropriate here. or too appropriate.