GIVE THE UNITED STATES military some credit. After wiping out Saddam Hussein’s sons, Uday and Qusay, with a barrage of small-arms fire and TOW missiles, they not only put their bodies on display–they made them look presentable (after those initial photos that could have appeared in Fangoria). No, it’s nothing like Lenin, Mao, or even Ferdinand Marcos. But then again, they didn’t have much to work with. Qusay took bullets straight to the head while his brother suffered blunt trauma (also to the head). In the end, both men looked like props from Madame Tussaud’s latest exhibit. In other circumstances, their faces would have required a closed-casket funeral. But while a closed-casket would’ve shown more respect, it wouldn’t have convinced the Iraqi people any more than it convinced Doors fans that Jim Morrison was dead and buried in Montmartre. Critics charge that the Uday and Qusay episode is simply another example of American imperial arrogance and brutality–showing off bodies in the tradition of Jesse James, Che Guevara, and, yes, Benito Mussolini. Others claim this is a violation of the Geneva Convention, since the bodies of the enemy are not supposed to be shown for humiliation or ridicule. And still others point to America’s hypocrisy since we expressed outrage when Saddam’s government showed videos of U.S. casualties during the war.

The thing is, Americans did not demand to see their dead on television. The Iraqi people, on the other hand, did want to see Uday and Qusay for themselves. As one Iraqi told the Washington Post, “I know it is forbidden to show the dead on television, but the Iraqi people wanted this, so they could have the truth.” Not that this will convince everyone the two brothers were killed. Said another Iraqi in the Post article, “Yesterday I saw the photos, and today I saw the dolls. It was difficult for the Americans to make people believe, so they made wax dolls like a museum.”