Saddam Hussein-dead. What now?

MSNBC says he died at 10:08 this evening ESDT. There’s no link on their page but a banner says they have it confirmed.

What are we going to see in the next day or two? The next month?

Oh yeah, I’m talking about Saddam Hussein. I wrote that with one eye on the news.

There is a decent chance that there will be very little in the way of repercussions, people might just, for the most part, shrug it off. Here’s hoping.

There apparently have been hundreds of thousands of people who have been cowed, even if subliminally, by the idea that he would escape or be released and come back into power. That worry is now gone (although I assume the Saddam-wasn’t-really-killed conspiracies are starting–now!) and those people have to face a future without this constant threat.

As for the violent assholes, those few who do seem to have bringing Saddam back as the motive for blowing up mosques or whatever won’t change, and the rest of them won’t either.

As for TV, I’m watching CNN–they say al-Hurra and al-Arabiya are saying he’s dead, CNN and the Beeb are hedging, al-Jazeera is confused too. Right now, he’s Schrodinger’s Dictator.

I don’t think we’re going to see anything. This has been a foregone conclusion since he got caught.

Tomorrow we’re going to be in between two groups of people that hate each other and us, just like we have been for years. More American lives being lost for no good reason.

Whoops, BBC is declaring he’s dead, Jim.

It’s always funny how they use quotes, it makes them sound even more sarcastic than they usually do. Saddam Hussein ‘executed in Iraq’. Um, OK. Perpetual air quotes over there.

I hope you get the same morgage company ad I am on CNN.com.

With a menacing Saddam on the left, there’s a sillouette of some guy on the right dancing his butt off.

Thank’s to whomever changed “He’s dead” to “Saddam Hussein” in the title.

Thank’s to thanks. Sorry, a pet peeve is my own grammar/spelling.

It doesn’t speak well for the current situation there in Iraq that the execution of Hussein was handled in such a secretive and confusing fashion. I guess they were too worried to reveal when, let alone where, he was going to be executed.

I take no pleasure in the cruel death of another human being.

I presume the next step is that they bury him. Maybe a short commercial break in the civil war but other than that, nothing special.

What, not hang him upside-down on a meathook in public like Mussolini?

The world has grown so soft . . .

I confidently predict that this will bring about the last throes of the insurgency.

The next six months will be crucial.

We’ve turned the corner in Iraq!

Democracy is on the march !

Oh, and whatever you do, don’t forget Poland !

Well, no meathooks, but a witness said that as soon as he died most of the people in the room starting dancing around his body chanting Shiite slogans.

He’s to be buried in an unmarked grave somewhere, but unfortunately not with the corpse of a pig. His daughter wants him buried in Yemen but unfortunately for her she’s a wanted slimeball herself.

CNN is piously saying that they will evaluate any video or photos they’ll be getting; they’ll warn us about “what we are about to see.” But since it can’t be worse than Brainglutton’s link, or for that matter Saddam’s victims in Halabja, I’ll look.

According to Bill O’Really, we can expect a slight uptick in the insurgent violence.