You pointed it out yourself.

As human beings, we have structured, agreed upon, ritualized ways of dealing with difficult situations. Mobs don't deliberate. Mobs don't take oaths or affirm their intent to follow the law and interpret evidence. Mobs let emotion go to their collective head, and follow charisma and outrage into vandalism, arson and murder.

I agree with Art, that hanging was too good for him. I don't believe he went to Hell, because I believe there is no Hell. His suffering is over.

The Kurds also have a legitimate complaint, that their sufferings will never be recorded, accounted for and understood, because in Arab culture, once the offender is punished, usually the fact-finding stops. In the interests of justice and history, the Kurds should have had their day in court.

We also need to bear in mind that Eid al Adha, which commemmorates my least favorite Bible story, the ransoming of Isaac from being executed by his father Abraham, began according to the Sunni calendar at sunrise just after Saddam's execution. (The Shi'a calendar, I believe, celebrated it starting Dec. 20.) So the choice to execute a Sunni leader just before this feast was tactless, especially by a leadership headed by a Shi'ite.

That said, the sentence handed down was an Arab sentence, in Arab culture, on an Arab criminal, by Arabs. Saddam received more consideration than he gave to the many, many hundreds of people he executed. The sentence was culturally appropriate even if I, sitting in my comfortable American chair, would have approached it differently. The timing, well, not so much.