As I’m sure you all know by now, Saddam Hussein has been hanged to death — executed for his role in the slaughter of 148 in the Shi’ite town of Dujail.
Iraqis, according to the Times, “spent much of the day crowding around television sets to watch mesmerizing replays of a videotape that showed the 69-year-old Mr. Hussein being led to the gallows at dawn by five masked executioners, and having a noose fashioned from a thick rope of yellow hemp lowered around his neck.”
But, as Xeni notes in an excellent round-up of the execution coverage, “explicit images of Hussein’s corpse and ‘unedited’ cellphone video of the hanging (which includes the moment of death) have already shown up online,” on Google Video.
The video is grotesque. But “I think there’s a public interest in making this available for adults who choose to see it, non-passively,” Xeni tells Defense Tech. I agree.
UPDATE 9:26 PM: Defense Tech pal Michael Hastings has himself a scoop, interviewing Ali Al Massedy, who “was 3 feet away from Saddam Hussein when he died. The 38 year old, normally Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s official videographer, was the man responsible for filming the late dictator’s execution at dawn on Saturday.”
UPDATE 10:24 PM: Eric Umansky has “the most telling part of the execution.” Let’s just say Moqtada Al-Sadr is psyched.
UPDATE 12/31/06 11:49 AM: “We are seeing 21st century psychological operations,” says TPM Cafe. “It can be concluded there were elements within America’s government and/or military, working in concert with Iraq’s current scarecrow power-holders, who wanted as many people as possible in the world to see Saddam hang.” I’m not sure I buy this. And I can’t get with screeching tone. But it’s an interesting notion, nonetheless.
UPDATE 12/31/06 11:56 AM: Juan Cole gets into the execution’s religious dynamics.
The tribunal also had a unique sense of timing when choosing the day for Saddam’s hanging. It was a slap in the face to Sunni Arabs. This weekend marks Eid al-Adha, the Holy Day of Sacrifice, on which Muslims commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son for God. Shiites celebrate it Sunday. Sunnis celebrate it Saturday –- and Iraqi law forbids executing the condemned on a major holiday. Hanging Saddam on Saturday was perceived by Sunni Arabs as the act of a Shiite government that had accepted the Shiite ritual calendar.
The timing also allowed Saddam, in his farewell address to Iraq, to pose as a “sacrifice” for his nation, an explicit reference to Eid al-Adha. The tribunal had given the old secular nationalist the chance to use religious language to play on the sympathies of the whole Iraqi public.
The political ineptitude of the tribunal, from start to finish, was astonishing. The United States and its Iraqi allies basically gave Saddam a platform on which to make himself a martyr to Iraqi unity and independence — even if by unity and independence Saddam was really appealing to Sunnis’ nostalgia for their days of hegemony.
(Big ups: Josh)
Saddam Hussein deserved to die, but how this happened is a tragedy for America’s image.
We allowed a drum trial to take place, and called it “free and fair”. We handed him over. We watched as something out of an Al Quaeda video as he was hung…
I do not mourn this monster’s passing, but how it happened will NOT be good for us in the long run.
Noah, is that right? Has what Umansky said been checked?
That’s bad news if it is … bad news.
what he did is barbaric and wrong and how he went is barbaric and wrong.. well as obvious as it is; two wrongs don’t make right.
Saddam Hussein got what he deserved. Only it shou-
ld’ve happened a long time ago. He’s had no resp-
ect for his country, his people, his family, him-
elf, nor people of other countries as well. He is
an ENEMY to alot of people & countries. He is the
SON OF SATAN!!! Very, very EVIL!!! What a MONSTER!
What religious text says “those that live by the sword, shall die by the sword”? I’m fairly sure that the Q’uran has a similar quote in it.
Saddam’s trial was typical of trials in Muslim countries, as was the speed of his execution. Before anyone sheds any tears about “two wrongs don’t make a right”, let’s remember how many people were crushed under the heel of his tyrannical ambition. And the argument that execution “puts the rest of us on the same level” is flawed on the face of it. Execution as penalty for criminal conduct is completely different than murder for personal aggrandizement.
Human life as a whole is precious, but no one individual life is sacrosanct. Removing a perpetrator of evil is a positive action for all of humanity. He was judged by the values of his society, found wanting, and suffered the punishment deemed appropriate by his society.
He was given a fair trial. I know it’s true, because George Bush said so.
Therefore, there is no reason why the American soldiers accused of killing civilians should not be handed over to the Iraqi justice system. Right?
Sure, I come from the EU, where a death sentence is considered ‘wrong’ to begin with, but I am very against the hanging of Saddam.
Sure, Saddam has performed evil deeds, I have no doubt of that. Slobadan Millosevic has done so too. Adolf Hitler was probably even worse and I could name about a million other “nice guys”…
However, the death penalty solves nothing here. The only reason to approve death sentences -IMHO- would be to prevent the culprit from doing his/her evil deeds again. Now come on, did anyone really believe Saddam could _ever_ get back in the saddle? Of course not. So the reason for this hanging was purely sensational…
Nobody doubts that he richly deserved it. The problem is the way it happened: a show trial, widely criticised, followed by a hasty execution. This was such a bad idea, that will do nothing to calm the situation in the short term of the long term. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Nobody doubts that he richly deserved it. The problem is the way it happened: a show trial, widely criticised, followed by a hasty execution. This was such a bad idea, that will do nothing to calm the situation in the short term of the long term. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Liberal/European values, or Kantisms, is nothing more than a phenomenom and a failure to me, and maybe to others with other values, especially values of John Locke.
>However, the death penalty solves nothing here.
Hmmm, if death penalty would solve nothing, wouldn’t that also mean any penalty toward any other crime solve nothing too? If that is true, that would be a challenge to the system of law. Human beings are motivated by two primary factors, reward and punishment. Punishment is not just limited to the individual, but also a warning to others within the society not to threat the order of society. European/liberal, or Kantism in the soul of Europeans, values against life sentence is a phenomenom in terms of indifference of victims and his or her relatives rights while protecting rights of the criminals. Do the people who oppose life sentence really understand the stress and depression of the relatives of victims? When those have relatives that were killed by a criminal, would those people continue to oppose life sentence? After the bombings of Madrid, Spain, by Islamists, there were voices within Spain calling for life sentence for those responsible. Certain wars are also a form of punishment, an ultimate punishment but it seems Europeans have learned nothing from WWII for their Pacificism and Kantism that have allowed Nazi Germany to build up its force and invade others. War and death penalty is an ultimate form of punishment with strong warning against others. Death penalty will remind the value of life for those who have violated and about to violate, once the criminal will face a life sentence with their life threaten by law and order. The mechanism of reward and punishment is very simple, but it does seem to take centuries for Europeans to understand it, and I really don’t know why.
It always amazes me that the people who advocate against the death penalty for a monster like Sadam worship the abortion of an innocent baby.
BOB X from Texas
Think about all the death we could have avoided if Saddam had been aborted. Eh bob?
Beyerstein nails it:
Executing Saddam Hussein was no more meaningful than pulling down the Saddam statue after the invasion. Hussein’s trial and punishment could have been an opportunity to get Saddam’s crimes on the record and administer real justice to a war criminal. Like every other opportunity in this war, the Americans managed to squander it.
Human Rights Watch, a group that has been lobbying to bring Saddam Hussein to justice for 15 years found published a 97-page report detailing the miscarriages of justice in Saddam’s trial.
Giving Saddam Hussein an unfair trial is the equivalent of the cops planting evidence at the OJ crime scene. If you need to cheat to get a conviction against someone who committed as many crimes as Saddam, there’s something very wrong with your justice system.
Saddam wasn’t hanged for genocide against the Kurds, in fact, he wasn’t even tried for those crimes against humanity. Instead, Saddam was executed for his role in a government-led purge following an assassination attempt in 1982. No doubt, the Americans wanted to make sure Saddam was executed on lesser charges before he could be tried for his larger crimes against humanity in which the United States and its allies were complicit.
Should this have happened?
Lets here your views:
http://saddamshusseinsfinalday.blogspot.com/
Saddam should have been in the ICC, and should not have been tried, convicted in Iraq, and not executed. No one supports mob rule. It’s not like Saddam was overthrown in a coup. The US is responsible for his fate, and we conveniently hand it off to the Iraqis, under the guise of sovereignty. Nothing positive will come of this, so why do it? There goes the “golden bridge” theory for unpopular leaders.
As for posting the videos, that is how the world now works, everything and everyone is recorded and posted on the internet in near real. It makes it harder for governments of the World to control the information flow to the masses, and that is a positive.
Exactly how ‘fair’ a trial are you looking for? Does anyone think he was innocent of the charges? Could possibly dragging this thing on for more week, months, into the ICC, could these maneuvers have made it any different?
I believe the swiftness of the trial, and the execution, is a positive. Saddam Hussein came into power quickly, comitted henious activities during his tenure, and did not deserve any more minutes alive on this earth. The swiftness of the justice and punishment had to be noted by other similiar world leaders, and was cause for some sphincter-tightening in several countries…or so we can hope.
TB – Take your Human Rights Watch and shove it up your ass. Count the French, Russians, Germans in on your “complicity” as well.
PS: I thought TB was something you got in a shit-hole 3rd world country.
Bye the way, his neck snapped like a twig. Interesting how they positioned the rope – to tension at his front. I caught a nice still shot by camera flash toward the end of the reel.
RTLM, that’s a FANTASTIC answer.
It combines the strategic thinking of Schlieffen/Rumsfeld with the self loathing and homophobia of Col. Frank Fitts.
Comedy gold.
Unless you were sincere. In that case … comedy gold!
What happened to the theory that the man captured in the rat hole and put on trial was Saddam Hussein’s look-alike?
Good Evening Folks,
A few questions I have that no one seems to be able to deal with, maybe some of you can enlighten me.
That question is, was Saddam ever turned formaly turned over to the Iraqi Government and if so where is the documents and video that must have been made for this affair.
Was Saddam executed outside or inside the U.S. Green Zone. Just after the execution was announced a story was put out about Saddam being take by American helicopter to a Shiite neighbor and executed in a former police facility. Where is the video.
An indicator that Saddam never left U.S.control is appearent in a video shown Saturday of a pine coffin being put on a U.S.Blackhawk. The facility had to have been U.S. controled because there was no appearent securit and it seems business as usual for the American seen loading the coffin.
The execution chamber looks familiar, I’ve seen it before on a video clip awhile back, it was not in a Suiite neighborhood of Baghdad.
I know that the above can’t be true because even this administration as lame as it is wouldn’t be this dumb. The world was watching, well not everybody it is said the President Bush had already gone to bed by the time the execution took place, Odd for a “Wanted dead or alive.” Texan to miss a hanhin’, but maybe Condi was at the Ranch for the weekend.
ALLONS,
Byron Skinner
All it will take to please me the document and the video that was promised of the handover, putting Saddam in an Iraqi vehicle and going oy of the gate.
When Sadam Hussein had some Americans from the American Embassy in Irak detained, he was shown on the news holding the children of American Embassy workers. He did this to show that he was not a bad guy. I`m sure most people that saw the news clip could tell that Hussein was a very evil person using children for his evil manipulation. He invaded Kuwait and was defeated by American led coalition. It was after this that the first bombing of the World Trade Center took place. I believe that Hussein was behind that plot as well as the last attack that destroyed the Twin Towers, killing thousands of civilians. It was his way of taking revenge against whoever opossed him. He paid $25,000 to suicide bombers families, had the WMD`s transported to Syria and Lebanon before the U.S. troops hit the sand, shot missiles at SaudiArabia and Israel etc. Good ridence,he came to power in a coup by the sword and he died by the sword.