Saddam to be dead in less than four hours?

[Train Wreck]

He's scheduled to be hanged by 7 PM, PST.

[Ironwood]

No doubt some will call it justice.

[Big Gulp]

No doubt some will call it justice.

Being mustard gassed to death would be justice.  This is taking out the trash.

[Tale]

This is taking out the trash.

Your poor neighbour's dog kills his children. You are rich and protect the dog as your pet for years and ignore rumours about other deaths. One day, it starts growling at you and it's pissing you off.

So you take your gun and go over to your neighbour's house, and frogmarch him at gunpoint over to your place. And you let him loose on the dog, which he kills. You make him carry the dog to the trash can, and tell him he should be thankful that you let him have his revenge.

Then you take out the trash.


edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wKZWjGopoc is from 1983, when Saddam was a US ally mustard gassing Iranians. He had already committed the crime he's being executed for.

[Strazos]

I wonder when footage will pop up on the interweb.

[Big Gulp]

edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wKZWjGopoc is from 1983, when Saddam was a US ally mustard gassing Iranians. He had already committed the crime he's being executed for.

You seem to think I have a moral compass that you can appeal to.  I don't.  When Saddam was committing atrocities that benefited us I would have said, "well, he's a bastard, but he's our bastard".  When Saddam started getting uppity and acting contrary to our interests he left the reservation and became a liability.

He's a client king who fucked up and became a problem for his true master.  Now he's paying the price for that.  It's always been this way.

[Train Wreck]

He's dead.

[Threash]

This is taking out the trash.

Your poor neighbour's dog kills his children. You are rich and protect the dog as your pet for years and ignore rumours about other deaths. One day, it starts growling at you and it's pissing you off.

So you take your gun and go over to your neighbour's house, and frogmarch him at gunpoint over to your place. And you let him loose on the dog, which he kills. You make him carry the dog to the trash can, and tell him he should be thankful that you let him have his revenge.

Then you take out the trash.


edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wKZWjGopoc is from 1983, when Saddam was a US ally mustard gassing Iranians. He had already committed the crime he's being executed for.

Just because other people deserve to die just as much doesn't mean he doesn't deserve it.  Killing Saddam is a good thing wether his trial was a farce, wether the US helped him get where he is and wether he ever had weapons of mass destruction or not the guy was and still is a monster who deserves death.

[Trippy]

He's dead.

Not yet.

[Train Wreck]

I was premature.

There are reports that he is already dead.  But other reports conflict that.

He is probably no longer with us, but it has to be fluffed up before they break it to us.

[angry.bob]

Going through with killing him will be incredibly bad, and stupid, and unnecessary. It would be much safer and smarter to lock him away in solitary in some EU prison.

[stray]

It would be much safer and smarter to lock him away in solitary in some EU prison.

With a bed sheet and some conveniently placed steel pipes on the ceiling. ;)

No one should do this job but him.

[Strazos]

I'm satisfied either way.

[pxib]

The trouble with justice is that it cannot truly exist in a world where there is crime.

We cannot have blunt, retaliatory justice because we cannot do to Saddam what he did to the Kurds. We cannot kill him that many times and we cannot kill him in the brutal circumstances he chose for their deaths. We can't even have idealized moral justice where Saddam comes to understand how the Kurds felt before they died unjustly, because at best he will understand that he deserves to die. There will be no surprise when he finds the floor beneath his feet is gone. He knows why he's being killed and how it is going to be done.

Once a crime has been committed, no amount of additional trial, torture and death will heal the injustice it has made. That happens inside the hearts and minds of the victims, quite beside whatever happens to the perpetrator. The larger and more egregious the crime the less likely that anybody will ever be satisfied. The concept of Hell was probably invented to somehow justify what crimes, on Earth, tip the scales of Justice so far that they will never balance again.

Is there any reason to let Saddam live? None.
Is there any reason to kill him? It means nobody has to feed, house, and clothe him anymore.

But there is no justice in this hanging.

Hitler makes an excellent villain partly because he committed suicide, terrified and undone. Stalin was, by almost every measure, as vile and despicable a character... but he died in his sleep, probably content, after a long and prosperous life. The story doesn't have the same narrative oomph. Yes, it would be more satisfying if Saddam hung himself, but I think we're too late to get that kind of satisfaction from him. He's not so melodramatic as Hitler anyway.

[Righ]

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/29/africa/ME_GEN_Saddam_Quote_Box.php

There was apparently dancing around the body, and Shia chants. We'll get to see it all shortly - the video and stills will be published by the US run Al Hurra TV today.

[geldonyetich]

Saddam become unnecessary as soon as Bin Laden installed himself as America's bogeyman.

[Abagadro]

The U.S. obviously does not take kindly to dictators who go off the reservation.

I'm glad this asshole is dead, but the cost benefit analysis of what it took to do it is so out of whack that it boggles the mind.