# Saddam execution video on TV **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 30, 2006, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051 "2006-12-30T00:08:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/81 "2006-12-31T05:01:11Z")
Somehow I am supposed to see him as a bloody killer and not us. Life in prison would be proper . This thing is as wrong as what he did. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/82 "2006-12-31T07:16:59Z")
Did anyone else think that Saddam looked rather dignified if a little bemused whereas the image of the hooded and shifty officials made them look like terrorists. It seemed to echo the videos of terrorists killing hostages. The BBC correspondent John Simpson noted this. I am certain that this video will become an icon in a cult of Saddam that will grow over the next few years as he is remembered in the Arab world as a great supporter of Palestine and an opponent of the US and the US supported regime that lasted through the occupation and fell as civil war occurred after the US and UK left in 2009. ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 9:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/83 "2006-12-31T09:06:04Z")
[QUOTE=Lissa] Secondly, having looked over historical records on this very issue, I see no evidence that the large number of public hangings which happened all throughout history until the modern era had any impact on crime. [/QUOTE] Whether public or not, you gotta admit the recidivism rate is pretty low. ---
**Author:** ![Seven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Seven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seven)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/84 "2006-12-31T09:22:07Z")
[QUOTE=gonzomax] Somehow I am supposed to see him as a bloody killer and not us. Life in prison would be proper . This thing is as wrong as what he did. [/QUOTE] I agree. I’d much rather see him reduced to an average criminal and forced to spend the rest of his days cold calling telesales for lightbulbs or stamping license plates. You know, doing things he’d think were below him. Oh yeah, and have his cellmate be someone like Richard Hatch or Charlie Manson. Heh heh. Death is the easy way out for him. I guess that’s just me. I’m never happy when the killer dies at the end of the movie either. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/85 "2006-12-31T10:41:25Z")
[QUOTE=jackelope] Whether public or not, you gotta admit the recidivism rate is pretty low. [/QUOTE] \< shrugs \> But if it provokes revenge from the friends/family/followers/comrades of the executed, or encourages other people to consider killing a valid solution to thier problems, you’ve gained nothing, or even lost. To be blunt, I’m more interested in not being murdered than in executing people, and I see no evidence that executions prevent killing. ---
**Author:** ![yojimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yojimbo/32/232_2.png) [@yojimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yojimbo)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/86 "2006-12-31T13:18:47Z")
[QUOTE=Unregistered Bull] The that looks like a cell phone cam took it? I’d sure like an English translation of what was said. [/QUOTE] > [@](#): > > Translation of Arabic subtitles accompanying the latest execution footage when broadcast on al-Jazeera TV station: > > [Saddam] Oh God. > > [Voices] May God’s blessings be upon Muhammad and his household. > > [Voices] And may God hasten their appearance and curse their enemies. > > [Voices] Moqtada [Al-Sadr]…Moqtada…Moqtada. > > [Saddam] Do you consider this bravery? > > [Voice] Long live Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr. > > [Voice] To hell. > > [Voice] Please do not. The man is being executed. Please no, I beg you to stop. > > [Saddam] There is no God but Allah and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God. There is no God but Allah and I testify that Muhammad… > > At this point the video stops and the sound of the trapdoors opening is heard in the background. > **[BBC NEWS | Middle East | Video shows taunts at execution](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6220829.stm)** > > New footage of Saddam Hussein's death shows the former Iraqi president exchanging insults with witnesses. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/87 "2006-12-31T14:58:55Z")
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant] I thought they died from a broken neck. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Yes, a long drop breaks the neck. Saddam got a long drop. Prior to the middle 19th Century, the condemned would be taken up on a ladder, a horse, etc., or he was ‘hauled up’ from ground level and jut pushed off resulting in strangulation. I would assume (but I don’t know) that constriction of the carotid arteries resulted in unconsciousness within half a minute. The technique of a long drop breaks the neck and results in instant unconsciousness. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/88 "2006-12-31T17:23:43Z")
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.] Yes, a long drop breaks the neck. Saddam got a long drop. Prior to the middle 19th Century, the condemned would be taken up on a ladder, a horse, etc., or he was ‘hauled up’ from ground level and jut pushed off resulting in strangulation. I would assume (but I don’t know) that constriction of the carotid arteries resulted in unconsciousness within half a minute. The technique of a long drop breaks the neck and results in instant unconsciousness. [/QUOTE] Restriction of the artery would result in rapid loss of consciousness (seconds). It’s used in Judo and you don’t much time to surrender in a tournament match. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/89 "2006-12-31T17:39:45Z")
[QUOTE=Pjen] Did anyone else think that Saddam looked rather dignified if a little bemused whereas the image of the hooded and shifty officials made them look like terrorists. It seemed to echo the videos of terrorists killing hostages. The BBC correspondent John Simpson noted this. [/QUOTE] No, I thought he looked like the murderous tyrant he always was. If you want to compare his image to someone compare it to Hitler. [QUOTE=Pjen] I am certain that this video will become an icon in a cult of Saddam that will grow over the next few years as he is remembered in the Arab world as a great supporter of Palestine and an opponent of the US and the US supported regime that lasted through the occupation and fell as civil war occurred after the US and UK left in 2009. [/QUOTE] The survivors of his death squads rejoiced in the streets when the video came out. Those are the people whose opinion counts. Not mine, not yours and not the Arabic Hitler Youth who follow him. ---
**Author:** ![BarnOwl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e95f7d/32.png) [@BarnOwl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BarnOwl)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/90 "2006-12-31T17:48:52Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Such is the standard. The neck cannot bend “sideways”, the noose is placed just under the ear to maximize the chance for an instant spinal break that severs the spinal column, by maximizing the “leverage”. There is some skill in calculating the weight of the victim relative to the “drop” (how far he falls before he reaches “the end of his rope”). Too little drop, the neck does not snap, the victim strangles. Too much, the head comes right off. There’s no nice way to kill people. [/QUOTE] Except, perhaps, killing them with kindness. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/91 "2006-12-31T18:07:36Z")
> **[Who wants to visit Saddam's house?](https://www.salon.com/2008/12/05/saddam/)** > > The Iraqi president does his best Darth Vader imitation in HBO's miniseries "House of Saddam." An alternative view is offered by Mr. Juan Cole, who has some expertise in these matters, as well as a demonstrable track record for being, well, right. To paraphrase for the lazy, everything about Saddam’s trial and execution was structured to highlight sectarian differences. From the crime chosen to prosecute to the last-second mockery at the moment of his demise, everything seems structured to emphasize the Sunni-Shia divide in the most malignant light. If this was an accident, it would be stunningly inept, if it was not, it is stunningly provocative. The current government of Iraq has no interest in reconciliation, save by abject surrender. The longer we continue to support them, the more we are manipulated to ally ourselves with the “payback movement”. There are hints, here and there, that an American escalation (which is what “surge” means in plain English) would be utilized to counter the destructive force of Muktada al-Sadr’s “death squad” militia. This is purest horseshit, such an action would be a nightmare, it would entail urban combat, house to house, door to door with an appalling loss of life, both in “collateral damage” and American soldiers. And it would almost certainly fail. The Shia-Kurd dominated government of Iraq is perfectly willing to allow us to squander our blood and treasure on their behalf. This is unwise. “Unwise” in the same sense that an atomic explosion is “loud”. ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/92 "2006-12-31T18:19:54Z")
John Simpson of the BBC is reporting that the phone cam version of the execution is being circulated freely in Baghdad and that manu Sunnis are saying that the execution was carried out by a Shiite death squad. Some hope of national reconciliation then. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2006, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/93 "2006-12-31T19:27:08Z")
May God have mercy on his soul. And good riddance. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/94 "2007-01-01T17:14:56Z")
I’m pleased with myself that I haven’t bothered to watch this mockery of justice. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/95 "2007-01-01T19:03:45Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] > **[Who wants to visit Saddam's house? - Salon.com](https://www.salon.com/2008/12/05/saddam/)** > > The Iraqi president does his best Darth Vader imitation in HBO's miniseries "House of Saddam." An alternative view is offered by Mr. Juan Cole, who has some expertise in these matters, as well as a demonstrable track record for being, well, right. To paraphrase for the lazy, everything about Saddam’s trial and execution was structured to highlight sectarian differences. From the crime chosen to prosecute to the last-second mockery at the moment of his demise, everything seems structured to emphasize the Sunni-Shia divide in the most malignant light. If this was an accident, it would be stunningly inept, if it was not, it is stunningly provocative. The current government of Iraq has no interest in reconciliation, save by abject surrender. The longer we continue to support them, the more we are manipulated to ally ourselves with the “payback movement”. There are hints, here and there, that an American escalation (which is what “surge” means in plain English) would be utilized to counter the destructive force of Muktada al-Sadr’s “death squad” militia. This is purest horseshit, such an action would be a nightmare, it would entail urban combat, house to house, door to door with an appalling loss of life, both in “collateral damage” and American soldiers. And it would almost certainly fail. The Shia-Kurd dominated government of Iraq is perfectly willing to allow us to squander our blood and treasure on their behalf. This is unwise. “Unwise” in the same sense that an atomic explosion is “loud”. [/QUOTE] You know, I saw the video up to the point of the hanging originally and wondered what was being said. Now that we’ve got an account (or a few accounts) of what was said, that’s some pretty cold-blooded shit right there. I thought about reprocussions of what this could mean, and came up with a similar response to the author of this cite. Obviously they’re not going to have pro-Saddam people execute him, so that means he’d have political adversaries doing the work. The exchange between the executioner(s?) and Saddam, if that’s true, is definitely…different, at least according to Western standards. Of course, that’s the hurdle: the way we have things and the way things are set up in other places. That’s always been the hurdle and always will be the hurdle. In any case, there’s going to be a reaction. The question is now where it’s going to be and how big it’s going to get. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/96 "2007-01-01T19:12:33Z")
[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever] Of course, that’s the hurdle: the way we have things and the way things are set up in other places. [/QUOTE] At the risk of sounding as though I want to “help our little brown brother”, I wonder if some folks don’t want a democratic government lest could some choose to not follow religious law. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/97 "2007-01-01T19:32:54Z")
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant] At the risk of sounding as though I want to “help our little brown brother”, I wonder if some folks don’t want a democratic government lest could some choose to not follow religious law. [/QUOTE] No doubt. As well, at this point, quite a few people in that region don’t want democracy because we’ve convinced them that “democracy” means “bloody chaos and national disintegration.” [Syria](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/25/AR2006102501893.html), for example. > [@](#): > > “Now, talking about democracy and freedom has become very difficult and sensitive,” Salam said. “The people are not believing these thoughts anymore. When the U.S. came to Iraq, it came in the name of democracy and freedom. But all we see are bodies, bodies, bodies.” > > Ordinary people in Syria are hunkering down, and probably rightly so, said Omar Amiralay, a well-known Syrian filmmaker whose documentaries are quietly critical of Assad’s one-family rule. > > “If democracy brings such chaos in the region, and especially the destruction of society, as it did in Iraq and in Lebanon, it’s absolutely normal, and I think it’s absolutely a wise position from the people to be afraid to imagine how it would be in Syria,” Amiralay said. "I think that people at the end said, ‘Well, it is better to keep this government. We know them, and we don’t want to go to this civil war, and to live this apocalyptic image of change, with civil war and sectarianism and blood.’ " ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/98 "2007-01-01T19:33:47Z")
[QUOTE=rjung] I’m pleased with myself that I haven’t bothered to watch this mockery of justice. [/QUOTE] Saddam Hussein was a dictator who used rape squads and death squads to stay in power. His first day in “office” he murdered his political opponents. He gassed an entire community in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt. He was tried in a real court of law and convicted for those crimes by people who risked death to vote. They’ve earned the right to convict the person who persecuted them. Calling this a mockery of justice is a mockery of reasoned debate. I’m pleased I live in a country where people can voice their opinion without the threat of retribution from murderers like Saddam. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/99 "2007-01-01T19:36:10Z")
[QUOTE=Least Original User Name Ever] …In any case, there’s going to be a reaction. The question is now where it’s going to be and how big it’s going to get. [/QUOTE] Apparently, so far, not so much. A classic “good news, bad news”. The good is that the Sunni do not, by and large, consider Saddam a martyr to their cause. But they cannot help but notice the sectarian nature of the, ah, “proceedings”. The timing of the execution so that it does not offend Shia sensibility but directly insults Sunni sensibility makes that impossible. If the Sunni do not express their outrage to the ruling governance, it is probably because they cannot expect any redress, their grievances are of no consequence, and they know it. Its rather like the lack of public reaction to the Haditha murders. An optimist might hope that such a lack was due to a forgiving and understanding nature, an Arabic version of “shit happens”. I fear it is more likely that they simply didn’t expect anything different. ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2007, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051/100 "2007-01-01T19:58:06Z")
[QUOTE=Magiver] Saddam Hussein was a dictator who used rape squads and death squads to stay in power. His first day in “office” he murdered his political opponents. He gassed an entire community in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt. He was tried in a real court of law and convicted for those crimes by people who risked death to vote. They’ve earned the right to convict the person who persecuted them. Calling this a mockery of justice is a mockery of reasoned debate. I’m pleased I live in a country where people can voice their opinion without the threat of retribution from murderers like Saddam. [/QUOTE] Yeah. Pleased as punch you should be. [Hold these grotesque executioners to account](http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16033.htm) > [@](#): > > STOP ALL the clocks. He is dead. Saddam Hussein had a rather good death, and dictators shouldn’t have good deaths. He went to the gallows in dignity, holding the Koran, urging reconciliation, his head uncovered amid his captors’ balaclavas. > > The grotesque exercise turned a brutal tyrant into something like a martyr, a victim of a victor’s justice. After what Human Rights Watch called a “trial by ambush”, because of the conduct of the defence and the rush to judgment, the execution was overhasty too, as if his captors felt they had to dispatch him before 2006 was out. Was this intended as a kind of new year message from George W Bush? For Auld Lang Syne? > > The execution of Saddam may have brought “closure” to the White House, but it left a bitter taste in the mouths of the rest of us. He was executed under the auspices of an Anglo-American occupation that has brought little but death and destruction to Iraq. Even members of the Iraq Study Group in the US Senate accept that the people of Iraq are probably worse off now than under Saddam. So, who is going to hold the executioners to account? > > **Who will try Bush and Blair, the authors of an invasion which was almost certainly illegal under international law and which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians? Shouldn’t they be in the dock?** > > They ordered the invasion of Iraq on the dubious pretext of disarming weapons of mass destruction which weren’t there. They deceived the international community and their own people in order to justify the invasion of a country which posed no military threat. That is perilously close to prima facie evidence of a war crime. > > Imagine if Iraq had invaded, say, Kuwait on the grounds that it was pre-empting a military threat? Actually, that’s not far off what happened in 1990, and we went to war to expel Saddam from Kuwait on the grounds that he had breached international law. Now we stand accused of a similar violation. > > No, I’m not saying that Tony Blair should swing for his crimes. But there must be some kind of recognition that this war has been a catastrophic error and some attempt to make amends. To execute Saddam while accepting no responsibility or guilt for what we have done to Iraq is shameful, and history will condemn us for it. > > And let’s not maintain the fiction that the US had nothing to do with this judicial killing. If the occupying powers had wanted to, they could, of course, have prevented Saddam’s hanging. But Bush decided that the US public would rather warm to this exercise in Old West justice. And perhaps they will. > > But this has done nothing for the prestige of the occupying powers in the region. The death of Saddam has only given his Sunni countrymen another reason for prosecuting the war. Another turn in the cycle of violence. > > **And the stench of hypocrisy will linger for years in the West as we slowly come to terms with the enormity of what has been done to Iraq in our name**. my highlights. Then again, some appear strangely immune to said stench. Could it be because it emanates from their own bodies and thus they are used to living with it? Merry fuckin’ New Year. USA…fuck yeah! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/saddam-execution-video-on-tv/386051.md?page=6)