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.
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.
< 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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”.
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.
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.
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.
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, for example.
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.
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.
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!
