Oh, for the love of God

New episodes of Grey's Anatomy are running now, so I have to crib from the show's catch phrase: Seriously? Seriously? From The New York Times:

The botched hanging of Saddam Hussein and two lieutenants in Iraq by its Shiite-led government has helped to accelerate Sunni-Shiite sectarianism across an already fragile Middle East, according to experts across the region ...

The depth of suspicion, and the readiness among Sunni Arabs to blame the United States for everything grim in Iraq, was reflected in interviews conducted in neighboring countries after the hangings.

“The U.S. is 100 percent guilty,” said Turki al-Rasheed, who heads an organization promoting democracy in Saudi Arabia.

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, in Egypt on a Middle East tour, joined the recriminations. “I would be the first to say that we were disappointed that there was not greater dignity given to the accused under these circumstances,” she said, referring to Mr. Hussein’s execution and the two carried out Monday. “I think that passions run high after years of turmoil, under dictatorship, and that is apparently what happened. But it shouldn’t have happened and I think that it did not reflect well on the Iraqi government that it came out that way."

When officials from Mr. Maliki’s office appeared at the Baghdad Convention Center with the video of the hangings, they were at pains to offer a minutely-detailed account of their procedures. Their accounts were about equally apologetic and assertive as they explained how Mr. Ibrahim had come to have his head severed, and how sympathy for the condemned man and his family should be attenuated in the light of the brutalities he had committed when serving the regime of his brother.

Seriously? Seriously? We can't trust Iraqis to quell its own civil war, but we trust them to carry out the executions of high-profile former political figures, which, when muddled, do nothing but sever the U.S.'s position on just about everything, including our apparent hypocritical belief in human rights. Even Saudia Arabians, who won't let women drive cars, are saying so. It's an outrage.