Jackson Free Press

Saddam is dead.

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a swaying *bump*

pikersam

Dec 29 2006

So, do our soldiers get to come home now? :-(

pikersam

Dec 29 2006

I'm not happy that a man just died. But I hope it helps quell some of the violence. There were many Iraqis would were convinced that he might still return to power, and this contributed to the instability. I hope his death puts those fears (or hopes) to rest. I won't say his death was unjust, but I don't celebrate it. I know full well how bad he was, but I think delighting in a man's death would only serve to sicken my own soul. I hope he made his peace with God.

GLB

Dec 30 2006

I think this will be an unpopular statement, but I believe the execution was contrary to the best reforms the U.S. must establish in Iraq if it is to become a nation of individual rights over brute power. The prohibition of a death penalty, even for men such as Hussein, should have been one of our first reforms. Not because Hussein deserved to live, but because Iraq deserves to be free of government empowered to kill its own citizens.

Brent Cox

Dec 30 2006

I must say that my feelings are mixed. I think the execution is a bad idea on a practical level, and I came into the whole process thinking "this is terrible," not only because Iraq is still instituting the death penalty, not only because Saddam Hussein did not receive a fair trial (we all know he's guilty, but murdering his defense attorneys and threatening his judges doesn't bode well), but primarily because his death will make this illucid old lunatic a martyr, and that's bad for Iraq. But then when I actually heard he had actually been executed, I have to say--and this surprised me--that I was delighted. No more Saddam Hussein. The architect of the al-Anfal Campaign is no longer breathing the same air as the rest of us. So it was a mixed bag. The death penalty appeals to dark instincts in all of us. Mine are still there, I reckon, to the point where I still take pleasure and comfort in the deaths of people like Saddam Hussein. This doesn't make the death penalty just, but it does speak to the difficulties we encounter when we try to get rid of it. I wrote extensively about this yesterday: Why I didn't think he should be executed on the one hand, and the vast number of atrocities he committed on the other. Cheers, TH

Tom Head

Dec 30 2006

I think it's tough Tom. On the one hand, I agree with your reasons why he shouldn't have been executed (and Brent's). On the other, it was crucial that the Iraqis are completely convinced that he wouldn't come back, and the only way that could happen was for him to be executed. I just saw the videotape of him being led to the gallows. It's an awful sight to see someone being led to their death.

GLB

Dec 30 2006

I'm saddened by the whole thing. While his crimes were many, the ultimate punishment should not have been handed down by man. If they needed some kind of assurance that Saddam would not come back, they could have taken him to Guantanamo and kept him there. Murder is not a suitable punishment for murder. This is taking "an eye for an eye" a little too far.

Lady Havoc

Dec 30 2006

Lady: This may seem odd to us, but as long as Sadaam was breathing there would be many in Iraq who would be convinced that he'd find a way to come back.

GLB

Dec 30 2006

It is tough. There are good reasons to execute him and good reasons not to execute him, but I have to say, as per Brent, that imposing the death penalty on someone--particularly after what was, in effect, a show trial--strikes me as a bad start for Iraqi democracy. On the other hand, as much as I like to think I'm not somebody who takes pleasure in another man's death, I frankly did take pleasure in the deaths of Uday Hussein, of al-Zarqawi, and so on and so forth, and I took pleasure in the death of Saddam, and I would be delighted if Kim Jong-il met with a similar fate. These people have inflicted and would continue to inflict unimaginable pain on others, without remorse, without love, without mercy; these sociopathic dictators are like rabid dogs, they are always a threat to others, no matter how well-imprisoned they are, and I can understand the impulse to euthanize them. So I am in the very strange position of opposing capital punishment even in cases where it "feels right," because I recognize that the fact that it "feels right" doesn't change the fact that it's wrong. We need to remember that Saddam was no saint. He was not Hitler, no, but that was not for lack of trying. Given the opportunity, he would have killed eleven million people in a Holocaust. His actions made this very clear. He would have been all too happy to exterminate the Kurds and Marsh Arabs, to wipe them from the face of the Earth--lord knows he tried. And he would have been equally happy to wipe out the world's Jewish population. He was a monster, a sociopath, a misogynist, a fundamentally hateful creature who had long ago lost the capacity to redeem himself. Executing him was almost an act of mercy. So what makes the death penalty wrong, for me, is that (a) it's permanent and (b) it sets a bad precedent, not that I have any personal aversion to seeing genocidal dictators killed. There are always extreme cases that don't bother me--I don't feel the least bit bad when a child rapist/killer, connected to his crime by DNA evidence, is executed. Even though I believe the death penalty is wrong and would like to see it abolished on principle, I could put the needle in myself and lose no sleep over it. Maybe that makes me a bad person, with more in common with the likes of Hussein than I'd like to admit, or maybe that just makes me a normal person whose emotional reaction to all this might explain why a majority of Americans still support capital punishment. My money's on door number two. And personally, I really wish there were more assassinations and less collateral civilian damage from bombing strikes, fewer U.S. troop casualties from occupations, and so forth. A Mossad bullet behind Saddam's ear in 1979 would have probably been so much better for everybody, certainly much better than the untold thousands of Iraqi soldiers who had to die protecting his ungrateful butt, leaving grieving families behind, grieving families who bore many similarities to the grieving families left behind by Saddam's atrocities. We shouldn't have killed Saddam Hussein, but now that he's dead, good riddance. Cheers, TH

Tom Head

Dec 30 2006

I'm sure of that, too. But still... it just doesn't seem right. Not being in that situation, I'll never understand. And I pray I never find myself in that situation.

Lady Havoc

Dec 30 2006

Tom: I agree that it's permanent and sets a bad precedent. You gave me the words I was looking for. But, even though I'm a mom myself, I can't agree with the death penatly at all, even for the case of a child killer. Castration and life imprisonment is my idea. In the case of Saddam, Bush the younger was just trying to finish a job that his dad botched. He went into Iraq with a personal agenda. That's what makes this whole thing doubly wrong, in my opinion. I don't believe we had any business over there, and we should pull out as quickly as possible.

Lady Havoc

Dec 30 2006

I oppose the death penalty, but only because the judicial system is imperfect, and therefore its possible to put to death innocent people. I agree that a show trial and execution set a very bad precedent for the Iraqis, but the trial and execution were their show to run. We really didn't have the right to impose our standards, unless we wanted to seize back some of the sovereign powers of the government there.

GLB

Dec 30 2006

LH, I definitely agree on abolishing the death penalty, even for child killers; I do want to make this clear. I'm just saying that there are some executions I don't lose any sleep over. Cheers, TH

Tom Head

Dec 30 2006

Well, to name an example: Take the Earnest Lee Hargon execution. Yes, I think it was wrong for the state to kill him, but I didn't show up at the candlelight vigil for him because I thought his crime (killing a family for financial reasons) was so self-serving and so obviously premeditated that I thought drawing attention to his execution did more harm than good to the cause of abolition. Scared 18-year-olds who are committing a robbery, get a gun drawn on them, panic, shoot first, and get sentenced to death under a cloud of racial disparity strike me as appropriate subjects for candlelight vigils; men who abduct, rape, torture, and murder children, not so much. Nobody should be executed, but there are some people I'm just not inclined to light a candle for. Cheers, TH

Tom Head

Dec 30 2006

You're still drawing a line, Tom. You'll defend someone who might be a victim of racial circumstance and "tainted" justice, but well planned and premeditated butcherings are earned? If the death penalty is bad, then it's bad for that black kid as well as Hannibal Lecter. Until we reform the system, this is the penalty. Like the Shadow says, The weed of crime bears bitter fruit.

Ironghost

Dec 30 2006

I don't remember saying that the death penalty isn't always a bad idea; that's why I favor abolishing it. But obviously I'm going to be less sympathetic to some folks than others. I'm not made of wood. Cheers, TH

Tom Head

Dec 30 2006

A friend just pointed out to me that Earnest Lee Hargon has not been executed; I confused his execution with that of another recent middle-aged white guy whose motives appeared to be equally calculating. My friend also pointed out (and I should have considered this) that media coverage of death penalty trials _always_ make the defendants' actions look calculating because that sells better copy. Cheers, TH

Tom Head

Dec 30 2006

Just before the U.S. went to war in Iraq, I was working at a Quaker school in Birmingham, England where I had an occasion to talk with Iraqi doctors about Hussein. They had no praise for him, but they honestly pointed out that the world, namely the U.S., enabled Hussein to rise to power. If he was guilty, so was our foreign policy that sold him the weapons that made him powerful and intentionally looked the other way when he used those weapons. When the doctors left the school, one of them wept as if understanding the horrors in her future. I believe hanging Hussein is one of those horrors, executed as he was amid the lie that justice comes through more killing. Power comes that way, through the barrel of a gun, but Iraq's streets already run red with such power. Justice is what Iraq needs, and that comes only when individual rights are sacrosanct above all else, first being the right to be free from the threat of slaughter by one's own government.

Brent Cox

Dec 30 2006

In case anyone is wondering, there is a graphic video taken by someones phone of the hanging. I ain't linking it.

pikersam

Dec 30 2006

Good post, Brent. U.S. culpability was actually a central focus of my main Saddam piece (see the final section). Until 1991, everything Hussein did was done with some level of support from the U.S. government--including the genocidal al-Anfal Campaign. Cheers, TH

Tom Head

Dec 30 2006

This is a link to the video. Our government had a hand in this? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7532034279766935521

Brent Cox

Dec 30 2006

Drudge has a link to another viewpoint. Better camera man, even if he cuts out before the final drop.

Ironghost

Dec 30 2006

I find it inconceivable that our government wouldn't have had a hand in that, though they'll never admit it. It's undignified, but good psy-ops. The photographs of Mussolini's body getting torn up by the Italian crowds were even more ghoulish, but they did the job. Cheers, TH

Tom Head

Dec 30 2006

(And I say this admitting that I haven't seen the video of the execution proper--I saw the video of the prep and the video of the corpse, but I have no particular desire to see him hanged. I started watching and couldn't escape the feeling that I was watching a snuff film, so I turned it off.)

Tom Head

Dec 30 2006

There were so many people that wanted to see him dead that I doubt our government had to motivate or tell anyone to film it.

Kingfish

Dec 30 2006

That's probably true, but I'd be very surprised if they didn't make absolutely sure that somebody "smuggled out" footage of the hanging. And I'm not saying that makes them evil; it would be a smart tactical move. Cheers, TH

Tom Head

Dec 31 2006

the story is one of the Prime Minister's people was roped into doing it at the last minute with a Sony HD Camera. There's 15 minutes of reasonable video out there, somewhere.

Ironghost

Dec 31 2006

with all the crap that goes on Al Jazeera and the Middle Eastern Press they would be crazy not to film it. Some newspaper, the same ones that publish the Protocols and other filth, would say that he was hacked to death, raped, or tortured to death so as to inflame "the street".

Kingfish

Dec 31 2006

While I believe that Saddam got what he probably deserved, I am sickened by the this whole process. If I recall correctly one of the issues that was a basis for his appeal (to some concoted appealate court) was if he got a fair trial because 2 or maybe it was 3 of his lawyers were killed during his trial. I mean come on, if the majority of his lawyers were murdered during the course of his trial I think that qualifies as an unfair trial. This whole thing has been a sham from the get go.

snowjob

Dec 31 2006

He'd also threatened his judges, too. I think they did the best they could, given who they had to deal with.

Ironghost

Dec 31 2006

There was no way Saddam Hussein could have been given a fair trial in Iraq under these conditions. The fact that we know he's guilty, for other reasons, doesn't change the fact that international due process standards were violated. Not a promising start to Iraqi democracy. Cheers, TH

Tom Head

Dec 31 2006

They've got plenty of time to recover.

Ironghost

Dec 31 2006

Agreed, and the truth is that as bad as the due process standards were for Saddam, they were vastly superior than the due process standards under Saddam. I still badly want Iraq to succeed, especially after the U.S. troop casualties. It would depress me to no end if all of this turned out to be for nothing. Cheers, TH

Tom Head

Dec 31 2006

I did refrain from pointing out that most of Saddam's victims didn't even get a show trial. :)

Ironghost

Dec 31 2006

And that's not insignificant. I have to say that I can't build up the sense that Saddam Hussein deserved a fair trial or a just punishment; for me, this is what Iraq deserves, not what Saddam deserves. Considering how he treated his victims, Saddam really got off incredibly easy with the hanging. If punishments were really proportionate to crimes...well, there's not really any punishment severe enough, but I would shed no tears for Saddam if he had gotten the Mussolini treatment at the hands of an angry mob. Not after what he did to all those Kurdish children, all those Shiite children, all those Marsh Arabs. But Iraq deserves a system of justice where due process is respected, and I hope that Saddam Hussein is the last person executed in Iraq, at least under these kinds of conditions. That would be an appropriate milestone, a good way of marking the transition between the old Iraq and the new. Cheers, TH

Tom Head

Dec 31 2006

When discussing due process in this case, consider that every one associated with that court is under a death sentence that is VERY real and immediate. The judges, lawyers, clerks, everyone.

Kingfish

Dec 31 2006

True, and the best way to escape that is to make sure their side wins.

Ironghost

Dec 31 2006

Will someone please tell Bush and Co. that it is hypocritical to flaunt Saddam Husssein's medical inspection. I get a pain in my stomach each time I see it on TV. I don't care how terrible a person is, there is a thing called decency and respect for others. Even a dog's check up by a vet is private. The TV spot shows someone probing his mouth. This is insane for a country who is trying to promote democracy! I frequently get letters from Doctors/clinics taking about their policy of confidentiality. So, Saddam is dead. Now What??? Are we now feeling safer????????

justjess

Jan 2 2007

Just as safe as when we executed Tojo and Goering.

Kingfish

Jan 2 2007

Talk about shooting the messenger. The Times of London is reporting that the Iraqi government has arrested a prison guard “for filming and posting to the Internet” the unauthorized video showing the hanging of Saddam Hussein on Saturday. CNN is also now reporting the same, as is the Associated Press. So the problem is not so much that Shiite partisans shouted "Moktada Moktada Moktada" at Hussein as it is that someone made a record of it?

Brian C Johnson

Jan 3 2007

The problems isn't the damn camera. Typical blaming the "media." Kind of like blaming the soldiers who took the video of the Iraqis that U.S. soldiers targeted. I've always said that if human beings are going to make themselves excutioners, then every execution needs to be televised for all to see in all its, uh, glory.

DonnaLadd

Jan 3 2007