Do not mistake vengeance for justice. Whatever their resemblance, they are as alike as Cain and Abel. Vengeance is the product of inflamed emotion. It demands retribution above all else and, in its administration, makes a martyr of the accused. Justice is the product of cool reason. It demands accountability and, in its administration, is content to make a sinner of the accused.
The summary execution of Saddam Hussein a week ago was all about vengeance. It has added fuel to the pyre that is Iraq and the Arab world. It has foolishly made a martyr of a tyrant.
From the New York Times:
Images of Hanging Make Hussein a Martyr to Many
In the week since Saddam Hussein was hanged in an execution steeped in sectarian overtones, his public image in the Arab world, formerly that of a convicted dictator, has undergone a resurgence of admiration and awe.
On the streets, in newspapers and over the Internet, Mr. Hussein has emerged as a Sunni Arab hero who stood calm and composed as his Shiite executioners tormented and abused him.
“No one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was executed,� President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt remarked in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot published Friday and distributed by the official Egyptian news agency. “They turned him into a martyr.�
In Libya, which canceled celebrations of the feast of Id al-Adha after the execution, a government statement said a statue depicting Mr. Hussein in the gallows would be erected, along with a monument to Omar al-Mukhtar, who resisted the Italian invasion of Libya and was hanged by the Italians in 1931.
In Morocco and the Palestinian territories, demonstrators held aloft photographs of Mr. Hussein and condemned the United States.
Here in Beirut, hundreds of members of the Lebanese Baath Party and Palestinian activists marched Friday in a predominantly Sunni neighborhood behind a symbolic coffin representing that of Mr. Hussein and later offered a funeral prayer. Photographs of Mr. Hussein standing up in court, against a backdrop of the Dome of the Rock shrine in Jerusalem, were pasted on city walls near Palestinian refugee camps, praising “Saddam the martyr.�
“God damn America and its spies,� a banner across one major Beirut thoroughfare read. “Our condolences to the nation for the assassination of Saddam, and victory to the Iraqi resistance.�
By standing up to the United States and its client government in Baghdad and dying with seeming dignity, Mr. Hussein appears to have been virtually cleansed of his past.
“Suddenly we forgot that he was a dictator and that he killed thousands of people,� said Roula Haddad, 33, a Lebanese Christian. “All our hatred for him suddenly turned into sympathy, sympathy with someone who was treated unjustly by an occupation force and its collaborators.�
Just a month ago Mr. Hussein was widely dismissed as a criminal who deserved the death penalty, even if his trial was seen as flawed. Much of the Middle East reacted with a collective shrug when he was found guilty of crimes against humanity in November.
But shortly after his execution last Saturday, a video emerged that showed Shiite guards taunting Mr. Hussein, who responded calmly but firmly to them. From then on, many across the region began looking at him as a martyr. [full text]
Mark Fiore, who is renowned for his animated political cartoons, concurs, as demonstrated by his latest work, “The Luckiest Despot in the World.”
Kmareka.com 
Here are the words of “Mohammed”, who blogs at Iraq the Model (link):
Perhaps you are too comfortable and too far removed to understand the justice to which this Iraqi refers.
I thought this piece by Christopher Hitchens said a great deal about the wrongness of the hanging and how the US aided in this horrific act. It also brings up the issue of revenge and why it exists — because of a person’s sense of total powerlessness.
http://www.slate.com/id/2156776/?nav=navoa
The quote on revenge is from George Orwell:
Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.
Who would not have jumped for joy, in 1940, at the thought of seeing S.S. officers kicked and humiliated? But when the thing becomes possible, it is merely pathetic and disgusting. It is said that when Mussolini’s corpse was exhibited in public, an old woman drew a revolver and fired five shots into it, exclaiming, “Those are for my five sons!” It is the kind of story that the newspapers make up, but it might be true. I wonder how much satisfaction she got out of those five shots, which, doubtless, she had dreamed years earlier of firing. The condition of her being able to get near enough to Mussolini to shoot at him was that he should be a corpse.
As usual, the Hitchens piece is very well written and supported. Watching the video gives me pause, particularly as someone who has struggled with the concept of capital punishment. Orwell’s quote seems to refer to the immediate gratification of confronting one’s enemy. You must consider the long trial in which Saddam Hussein was allowed to hire representation and present his defense. This tyrant participated in a trial, was convicted and sentenced, and properly prepared for execution. You cannot equate this with kicking an SS soldier on the ground and parading Mussolini’s corpse through the streets.
Hussein will be a martyr only to those who already wanted him as such, or to those who have been shielded from the mass murders of fellow Muslims he ordered and committed. Sympathies towards this monster by the media (Arab and American, old and new) will aid in his martyrdom.
Personally, this just feels like yet more blood on American hands.
None of us can truly say whether Saddam–or anyone–deserved to die; at least, not as a prisoner without power. To have assassinated him while he was in power to prevent further crimes is one thing. To execute him in cold blood while he was helpless is quite another.
And my opinion has nothing to do with sympathy for him. Part of it is that we understand symbols very well. Now Saddam is a hero for dying a martyr’s death. That doesn’t help the situation on the ground. Keeping him around as a symbol of impotence is quite another.
By losing power he’d been emasculated. The humiliation of being in prison was probably worse than death for both him and any dead-enders remaining. I mean, the whole macho show he put on during the trial was a pathetic attempt to save face. Killing him only validates his danger. By keeping him around, we show how little he means. The bullfighter’s ultimate triumph is turning his back to the bull.
And, bottom line, capital punishment is all about revenge. There is no deterrent involved. Executing Saddam served no beneficial purpose.
As for the quote from “Mohammed,” I’m no expert, but I suspect the “eye for an eye” mentality is at work here. I don’t–I can’t–judge him for what he says. I can’t. But his suffering, and the sufferings of his people have not been lessened by Saddam’s death. They’ve been avenged, to whatever degree, but that brings us back to vengeance vs justice. Or, it seems like we’re back to “justice” in the Old Testament sense, which is the eye-for-an-eye thing.
So, while I can sympathize with “Mohammed’s” suffering, that doesn’t mean I have to agree with his judgment. I don’t. Killing Saddam just ratchets up the violence another notch. It’s just another death that has to be avenged by the other side. Where does it end?