Saddam Executed...

[Losethem (imported)]

Gee, at 33.16 Megabytes for the file size that must have been one hell of a camera phone.

[A-1 (imported)]

That site is no goo, Roj.

For the morbidly curious, the poor-quality clip can be found here

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 9766935521

WARNING:

This is pretty gruesome, although there is no blood...

If you have to watch it, and are not sure if you want to, try this.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 9441700977

...it minimizes the shock to the observer....

[A-1 (imported)]

If you want to mourn, go here...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-

9036948600951277531

...don't waste it on Saddam...

[A-1 (imported)]

If you need to LAUGH again...

...try the Saddam: redneckupdate...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=

3346381380072375453

[Beau Geste (imported)]

My own view on this is, that it is a bad idea to execute people for politically related crimes. My reason for this view (apart from the fact that I personally oppose all capital punishment) is, that execution has been too often used in history, as a way of eliminating political opponents of whoever is in power at a specific time. A few years ago, an author who opposed the ruler of Nigeria was executed there on charges which appear to have been trumped up. It might be pointed out that several major political leaders in the history of Israel (including Menachem Begin) did things in the 1940's which would probably have gotten them convicted of murder, and perhaps executed, if they had been caught. I would even have commuted Timothy McVeigh's sentence to life imprisonment, although I, too, have seen photos of the children killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.

I agree that Saddam Hussein was a thoroughly despicable person, he was essentially a street gangster who was able to take control of a political party and thereby to get control of a country. However, he could have been sent to Guantanamo or somewhere else outside Iraq, and would never have posed any further threat to anyone. I don't believe in revenge punishment--and life imprisonment is a kind of psychological torture which is, in its way, worse than death.

In any case, the potential for Saddam Hussein to get a genuinely fair trial in Iraq was quite low, and the outcome of the case appears to be seen in the Arab world as a situation in which the Shiites struck back at the Sunnites by killing their deposed leader. You'll note that there is little or no jubilation about the execution by Iraqi Sunnites, although many Sunnites, as well as Shiites and Kurds, were victims of Hussein.

You will also note that many of the celebrated figures of history--Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Christopher Columbus, Josef Stalin, to name a few--were responsible for the deaths of large numbers of people--as many as ten million people may have been killed in Stalin's purges and in famines related to the collectivization process in the 1930's. The victors are feted, the losers are hanged.

[Blaise (imported)]

My own view on this is, that it is a bad idea to execute people for politically related crimes. My reason for this view (apart from the fact that I personally oppose all capital punishment) is, that execution has been too often used in history, as a way of eliminating political opponents of whoever is in power at a specific time. A few years ago, an author who opposed the ruler of Nigeria was executed there on charges which appear to have been trumped up. It might be pointed out that several major political leaders in the history of Israel (including Menachem Begin) did things in the 1940's which would probably have gotten them convicted of murder, and perhaps executed, if they had been caught. I would even have commuted Timothy McVeigh's sentence to life imprisonment, although I, too, have seen photos of the children killed in the Oklahoma City bombing.

I agree that Saddam Hussein was a thoroughly despicable person, he was essentially a street gangster who was able to take control of a political party and thereby to get control of a country. However, he could have been sent to Guantanamo or somewhere else outside Iraq, and would never have posed any further threat to anyone. I don't believe in revenge punishment--and life imprisonment is a kind of psychological torture which is, in its way, worse than death.

In any case, the potential for Saddam Hussein to get a genuinely fair trial in Iraq was quite low, and the outcome of the case appears to be seen in the Arab world as a situation in which the Shiites struck back at the Sunnites by killing their deposed leader. You'll note that there is little or no jubilation about the execution by Iraqi Sunnites, although many Sunnites, as well as Shiites and Kurds, were victims of Hussein.

You will also note that many of the celebrated figures of history--Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Christopher Columbus, Josef Stalin, to name a few--were responsible for the deaths of large numbers of people--as many as ten million people may have been killed in Stalin's purges and in famines related to the collectivization process in the 1930's. The victors are feted, the losers are hanged.

Thank you for wise observations.

[s_76544 (imported)]

I agree that Saddam Hussein was a thoroughly despicable person, he was essentially a street gangster who was able to take control of a political party and thereby to get control of a country. However, he could have been sent to Guantanamo or somewhere else outside Iraq, and would never have posed any further threat to anyone. I don't believe in revenge punishment--and life imprisonment is a kind of psychological torture which is, in its way, worse than death.

Democrats and others want places like Guantanamo closed. Plus why should we hold him?

[n3rf (imported)]

Yes. I don't believe that we ever get the right story.

I saw the Videos about the Hanging and when a person gets Hung, his Neck is Broken.

As far as Oklahoma - the Canadian - expose with Kissinger, Haig, Rumsfeld and the X cia guy talking , it appeared to me that this was an inside job with multiple explosions and more than one HOLE. McVeigh was working for the military after the event said that Video-Grapher, Mr W Beal.

So as far as Mr Hussein story, with the modern "microscpe" called the Internet, we will learn all of it very soon. Happy New Year 2007, N3RF

[bobov (imported)]

I'm astonished at the response to Saddam's execution by so many. Saddam was tried, convicted, and executed by the Iraqis for crimes against humanity, not for "political" crimes. I'm talking about systematically murdering, torturing, raping, and imprisoning, without law or trial, at least a hundred thousand Iraqis, plus several hundred thousand Iranians and Kuwaitis. I'm talking about red hot irons in rectums; people fed alive into wood chippers; "rape squads" punishing scores of women for being married to the wrong men; reprisal killings of scores of hostages for the acts of individuals; Saddam's sons using "Iron Marias" - sarcophagi with daggers inside the lids - to murder personal enemies; people being burned alive, etc., ad nauseum. No different from Hitler.

That people can raise "moral" objections to his execution shows the abandonment of morality, and its replacement by political partisanship. Yes, our invasion of Iraq was ill conceived and ill executed, and W is a poor president. What does that have to do with Saddam? Should the Iraqi people be denied justice because the American custom is to precede each execution with a decade of appeals? Saddam wasn't some poor black with a Legal Aid lawyer, sitting on death row, who might have been exonerated by DNA testing. His crimes were real, manifest, unarguable, horrible, and on a vast scale. His execution was not "brutal," but was a model of decorum and restraint. Saddam would have been the last to file an objection to capital punishment. I can respect someone who says he rejects all capital punishment. (Presumably, this person would also reject abortion and euthenasia.) But to say Saddam was executed by the US for political reasons is absurd. He had over a year of debriefing, so any "secrets" he was likely to reveal are already known. Saying his execution was to conceal some terrible secret - no doubt devastating to the Bush administration, which until now has enjoyed the unalloyed support of the public - is a crazy conspiracy theory.

It's said (in Lytton Strachey's "Eminent Victorians," I believe), that Kitchener kept the Mahdi's skull, and drank a toast from it on the anniversaries of the Battle of Omdurman. I'd like to do something similar with Saddam's skull, but in our day, timid equivocation has come to equal decency.

[Blaise (imported)]

I'm astonished at the response to Saddam's execution by so many. Saddam was tried, convicted, and executed by the Iraqis for crimes against humanity, not for "political" crimes. I'm talking about systematically murdering, torturing, raping, and imprisoning, without law or trial, at least a hundred thousand Iraqis, plus several hundred thousand Iranians and Kuwaitis. I'm talking about red hot irons in rectums; people fed alive into wood chippers; "rape squads" punishing scores of women for being married to the wrong men; reprisal killings of scores of hostages for the acts of individuals; Saddam's sons using "Iron Marias" - sarcophagi with daggers inside the lids - to murder personal enemies; people being burned alive, etc., ad nauseum. No different from Hitler.

That people can raise "moral" objections to his execution shows the abandonment of morality, and its replacement by political partisanship. Yes, our invasion of Iraq was ill conceived and ill executed, and W is a poor president. What does that have to do with Saddam? Should the Iraqi people be denied justice because the American custom is to precede each execution with a decade of appeals? Saddam wasn't some poor black with a Legal Aid lawyer, sitting on death row, who might have been exonerated by DNA testing. His crimes were real, manifest, unarguable, horrible, and on a vast scale. His execution was not "brutal," but was a model of decorum and restraint. Saddam would have been the last to file an objection to capital punishment. I can respect someone who says he rejects all capital punishment. (Presumably, this person would also reject abortion and euthenasia.) But to say Saddam was executed by the US for political reasons is absurd. He had over a year of debriefing, so any "secrets" he was likely to reveal are already known. Saying his execution was to conceal some terrible secret - no doubt devastating to the Bush administration, which until now has enjoyed the unalloyed support of the public - is a crazy conspiracy theory.

It's said (in Lytton Strachey's "Eminent Victorians," I believe), that Kitchener kept the Mahdi's skull, and drank a toast from it on the anniversaries of the Battle of Omdurman. I'd like to do something similar with Saddam's skull, but in our day, timid equivocation has come to equal decency.

You make your case well. If anyone earned execution, Hussein did. Still, the execution reeks of victor’s justice and our Iraqi puppets killed the man in a tacky, partisan way. Frankly, the murderer we ought to have is the one who ordered the attack on the World Trade Center.