http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061229/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_061229142350
Why the hurry? Is it a good move to get it over with quickly, before the other trials? How, if at all, will this affect the various insurgencies? Do you believe more or fewer people will die because of his execution? Would you like to witness it?
The Iraqi government wants to do it before a holiday that’s coming up IIRC. I doubt it will make much of a difference to anything. And no, I have no desire to watch it, but I’m sure the US will make sure photos of his corpse are widespread.
My understanding is that, according the Iraqi law, he has to be executed within 30 days of the time he lost his appeal, which already happened. Might was well be sooner rather than later.
Anything like this is likely to cause a spike in violence. But the violence seems to be worsening even without an execution, so maybe we won’t be able to tell the difference.
I wouldn’t like to witness any execution.
I saw somewhere that they are not constitutionally allowed execute people during a holiday, and it sounds like Eid al-Adha is four days long. I wonder if they also want give Baathists minimal time to plan a reprisal or even a rescue- then again, most of the violence will probably come from Sunnis who don’t care much about Saddam in particular.
Ah. I semi-misremembered; it says here that he will be executed before the Eid religious holiday, not that that’s why that time was chosen ( although it doesn’t say otherwise, either ). I wouldn’t be surprised if Marley23 is right about why.
Tomorrow night, our lives will change
Tomorrow night, we’ll be entertained
An execution, what a sight
Tomorrow night
–SP:BL&U
Any day Saddam is excuted should automatically become an Iraqi holiday. I doubt any warring faction cares so much about Saddam that they’ll go nuts in reprisal.
I don’t care to see his execution, but am mildly curious about whether Mr. Peace-and-Reconciliation-don’t-hate-the-Americans changes his tune when he catches sight of the scaffold.
I’m sorry, could you expound on this a bit? I don’t understand who’s Mr. Peace-and-Reconciliation.
Saddam is a cold blooded, murderous bastard. Killing him is not necessarily a bad idea. However, the lawyer in me cringes at the idea of an execution after that farce of a trial. Something like 3 defense lawyers killed, another fled the country, trial judge changed at least once, problems with defense access to evidence/witnesses. That fiasco was not even worthy of being called a Kangaroo Court. Sentence and verdict were both known to everyone involved before the damn thing started.
He’s referring to Saddam’s ‘don’t hate the Americans’ statement from yesterday.
Out of love for Saddam? Maybe not. Out of love for killing/'cause it’s a good excuse? I’d expect so.
Even though I agree with what you just said…
…this part doesn’t bother me. Was there a shade of doubt that there was enough evidence to convict Saddam of multiple murders, or that there were extenuating circumstances?
*It’s not my fault that i’m so evil…
It’s society, society.
You see my parents were sometimes abusive…
And it made, a prick of me. *
–Saddam, in SP:BL&U
(Sorry, couldn’t resist. :))
The reality that verdict and sentence were known in advance should have given the participants even more freedom than usual to do it right, and makes the failure to do so that much more inexcusable. If you’ve got an unfuckupable case, then there’s no reason not to play fair.
I heard on the radio this morning that Hussein has been in American custody all this time; we’re going to turn him over to the Iraqi government for execution.
Reminds me of how the Inquisition used to work. The Church never executed anybody; they would just hand over a convicted heretic to the “secular arm,” always with a recommendation for mercy – and always with a clear understanding on both sides that actually following that recommendation would get the responsible secular officials themselves haled before the Holy Office in short order.
Good ol’ Unca Saddam released a letter in which he called on Iraqis to have “brotherly” feelings toward each other and said “I call on you not to hate, because hate does not leave space for a person to be fair, and it makes you blind and closes all doors of thinking.”
Saddam is big into irony these days.
Your analogy would work if the Americans had tried and convicted Saddam; however the Iraqis did.
The execution is supposed to take place tonight, before before 10 p.m. Eastern.
Sic semper tyrannis
What is the historical record of resistance after a dictator or leader is killed. Like after Chauchesku was killed the resistance, died out within a few days. Are there any precidents, like since they no longer have a leader to rally around? Obviously the same thing happened after Hitler killed himself.
Not applicable, since Saddam isn’t a leader of the resistance.
I dunno. A gallows in a state prison lacks the style of a Mussolini or Ceauşescu.
As Der Trihs said, neither comparison applies. Saddam wasn’t leading, or even inspiring, the insurgency. Very few of them want him back in power; most of them just want the other guys killed and/or the U.S. out of the country. I don’t know much about the sitaution in Romania in 1989, but I think that was a fight between the government and anti-government demonstrators, who were joined by the army. The whole thing lasted only a few days. The war in Iraq combines an anti-coalition insurgency and sectarian warfare between Sunnis and Shi’a, and it’s been going on for almost four years.
Farzad Bazoft was tried on a saturday, then executed in 5 days by Saddam.
I’m glad the Iraqi and US governments aren’t making too much of a spectacle of this, Saddam should die without pomp or prestige. He’ll just be another man consigned to the dustbin of history.
Maybe now we can concerntrate on more serious matters, such as preventing a civil war and the collapse of the whole country.