Sunday, November 05, 2006

Hang in There Kitty

By Kanrei

Saddam Hussein, the butcher of Baghdad, has been found guilty for ordering the deaths of 148 people in 1982. He and a select few of his fellow defendants will hang from their necks until they are dead. They do get an appeal which could take up to four weeks to be denied, but there is little doubt that it will be denied so he is basically now a dead man walking. I can honestly say I am not the least bit surprised in the verdict. In fact, I am quite numb to it to be perfectly honest.

Even though I opposed the war in Iraq, it was not because I ever once thought Saddam was a good man. I opposed it because I thought there were larger more urgent threats to our nation than he was. I thought that one war should be 100% finished before we found ourselves in another. Not for one second though did I ever think Saddam was a nice guy who we were wrongly picking on. The closest thing to defending him I ever said was that I thought we could have used his presence as a counter balance against Iran. I never deluded myself into thinking he was a good leader. There was no doubt that we were going to have to deal with him again sometime in the future.

I suppose numb is the wrong term to be perfectly honest in regards to this verdict. There was one minor surprise I did feel. I did not think people were still hung in the 21st century. It seems so barbaric and overly cruel to me. I know we are talking about an evil man, but still there are more humane methods of execution we could use readily available. Lethal injection or even the electric chair leaps to mind. If a public spectacle is what they are going for they could televise the event, but a hanging?

I am basically one of those “anti-death penalty” people 99.9% of the time. As a person who does not believe in a life after death I cannot help but see killing someone as an end to their punishment. I realize that most people do believe in one and they believe this person goes to Hell and suffers greater punishment than we could ever administer. I just cannot see that as an option. Saddam is a different case though. Saddam has to die for his crimes.

Saddam Hussein is not a criminal or a murderer; he is a world leader. His weapon was his authority as the
President of Iraq and he must be an example to other world leaders. His death is not about punishing him, it is a message to others who would follow in his path. It immortalizes his sins and forever links his name to his actions the way Hitler’s is to the Holocaust. It ends his story and closes the book on his contribution to it. He is now and forever a villain. That is what his death will bring.

There was no surprise in this verdict. The trial probably was a joke in many ways, but that is because there really was no defense for the man. He was as guilty as a person could possibly be. I am just shocked at the method chosen for his demise. I really thought we had progressed as a species beyond a hanging in the public square. That just seems strangely wrong to me.

5 comments:

Rex Zeitgeist said...

"Saddam Hussein is not a criminal or a murderer; he is a world leader."


Kan, I have known you along time and respect your opinion as much as anyone on the internet....but that is the craziest statement you have ever made....Maybe I am reading it wrong or taking it out of context.....Please explain....


Saddam Hussein is a brutal serial killer with the blood of over a 1,000,000 people on his hands.....He personaly killed hundreds of people by execution, with a bullet right to the head...

Saddam took control in Iraq by murder, haven't you ever seen the footage of his first real death session where he called out names of people who might fight his authority and he had them taken outside of the parliment and shot in the head?

Saddam took power by death and murder, he was no world leader, he was cheap thug and brutish killer....Nothing more....

They should feed his rotten ass to pigs and leave the bones in the gutter.....

Rex Zeitgeist said...

http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/stories/iraq501/events_index.html

http://history1900s.about.com/od/saddamhussein/a/husseincrimes.htm

Rex Zeitgeist said...

And I do see the broader point you were making and it implications for future and present dictators....But in reality, Saddam is a killer, he was never a 'leader'.....

Unknown said...

Rex,
What I mean by him not being a criminal or murderer is that he broke international laws, not criminal laws and cannot think of him in those terms. Ted Bundy was a murderer. Son of Sam was a murderer. Al Capone was a criminal and a murderer. Saddam was the leader of a nation. His crimes are more severe than those of a criminal or murderer. I might have not explained that well enough.

RexZeitgeist said...

Saddam was a hitman, his first job was to assasinate the the leadership in Iraq, which he failed at and was sent to jail.....

He got out, and again became a contract killer....

That is the very definition of a murder.....Saddam makes Bundy and Dahmer look like school girls....

Saddam, personally, with his own hands, killed more then both of them ocmbined....

He took the contry by force and murder....he was no world 'leader'......I smelled the death he caused when his army raped Kuwait......

Saddma Husseins hands are washed in the blood of innnocents...