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.