Death of a Tyrant

Saddam is dead.  They hanged him just a few hours ago.  That he deserved to die is true - Saddam Hussein was a sadistic sociopath; but there are many who deserve execution in our world today.  I don’t like that we had a hand in it.  I don’t like that it was video-taped for the slavering masses – his executioners shown dancing around the body, firing guns into the air. What makes them any different from all the others celebrating torture and death on the streets of Baghdad?  His death makes me feel dirty; and it shouldn’t.  But then I felt dirty when the bullet riddled bodies of his sons were shown all over the TV.  This is America – not ancient Rome.  Americans don’t parade dead bodies down Main Street – or at least we didn’t used to.  But then it seems there are a lot of things we do now that used to be considered abhorrent.  Frankly – I’m surprised they only hanged Hussein without drawing and quartering him as well.  But who knows?  Maybe when its Ahmadinejad’s turn we’ll have him eaten by lions.

Addendum:  From the Associated Press:

Although Iraqi authorities released no video of Saddam Hussein's execution, crude images of the hanging emerged Saturday on the Internet, and some TV networks used portions leading up to the trap door opening.

The video, apparently taken by a cell phone, clearly showed Saddam falling to his death and briefly swinging on a rope, his neck grotesquely bent.

And so it begins. 

Comments

[Rain]

FLS~

I read somewhere that in the Iraqi culture they need proof of death. Perhaps a public hanging is one way of getting it.

I do not understand the celebrating or the need for the body to be displayed but that is just me. I feel it is guesome.

My only question is, did they hang him in disgrace without his shoes on?

[Hootsbuddy]

Good comment. I found your blog through your note at Wampum and took the liberty of posting it verbatim at my place.

[Lu]

Very good comment indeed!!!
Let's hope we can move on past this....like you, I feel dirty that we had any part in this..

[Keone Michaels]

I remember when they killed his sons and laid them out in public and humilated their corpses.

All I could think about was that they had a mother and how she would feel.

[The Fat Lady Sings]

I am so conflicted about this. One the one hand we have a man who was responsible for the deaths of several hundred thousand people; but then - when you add up everyone who's been killed in Iraq - cannot we as Americans say the same? And what of Hirohito in Japan during WWII? Wasn’t he responsible for perhaps millions of deaths? Yet we granted him clemency. 1940’s America didn’t believe in torture and retribution – yet we do now. Bush and his lot consider this a normal reaction to 21st century warfare. It seems rather medieval to me. You know - I read Baghdad Burning (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/) and Riverbend has been very clear on how Iraqi’s view Bush and America. Her post on the death of Saddam is quite revealing; how it was an American production from beginning to end. Advance propaganda seemed to suggest that Saddam's death would end the insurgency - an opinion Riverbend sees as ill-informed and naïve.

But beyond that - beyond the long--term implications and geo-political repercussions - treating this execution like some sort of sporting event just seems un-American. I winced at the bloody pornography of showing the bodies of Saddam's sons and lieutenants; of parading Zarqawi’s partial remains around like al-Qaeda does dead Americans. It's right out of Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' – human life seen as disposable. You know – though I don’t consider myself a Christian, per se – that doesn’t mean I don’t respect and believe in the profundity of Christ’s teachings. From his perspective, and on a purely human level – what we are doing over there is wrong. Our president keeps a trophy from Saddam’s capture – did you know that? The gun that Saddam had in his spider hole. Bush carries it around – much like sociopathic killers do body parts or pieces of their victims clothing. I find that ghoulish. It makes me shudder just to think of it. Saddam kept trophies. I understand he used to keep his victims ears in a jar. Is Bush really any different? I don’t know – I just don’t know.

[thepoetryman]

Rats are weeping in the gutters
Between the two rivers. The bone-dry air is motionless
And the water is muted, lifeless. Mesopotamia is
Going round the bend, teetering on the edge.
Citizens of this great land, caked with blood,
Walk, stunned and weeping while a shadow looms
Behind an enormous object whose jaws rumble.

Was it worth your capture? Your death sentence?
You’ve carried out torture, murder, rape and genocide,
Now there is a larger thing haunting your land and people.
That enormous thing’s been sent as your executioner,
But it is not God. No. It is not Allah. It is empire.
And its sunburned grief of crippled beasts
Shall haunt you for eternity.

In the world you leave, men are still filled with hate
And horror beyond the quaking gates, summoning murder,
Clambering across the wilderness, devouring children.
Empire, has not, nor will it ever warble an angel’s song
Or sing out in a reverent verse for mankind!
It shall echo its high-pitched droning of “odium”
While the rats fill their lungs with tears.

[rain]

I wanted to post something all day about this and I didn't know what exactly my point is. But you have said it very well.

[oldwhitelady]

Shrub has Saddam's pistol. Perhaps, he'll ask for Saddam's head to put in his keepsake cabinet with the pistol.

I wonder how many people will die because of Saddam's hanging?

[The Heretik]

Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedom. Or something.

[blondesense]

This whole thing has me very mixed up for sure. I don't know if I can make sense of anything anymore and even if I do make sense of it, will it matter? I know what I am thinking but dare not ever write though.

[The Fat Lady Sings]

Go ahead and write what you feel. This is affecting everyone differently. I don’t happen to believe we all should be on the same page with this. Saddam was a horrible man who did unspeakable things. He deserved to die; but then so did Pinochet, Papa Doc Duvalier, Idi Amin - the list of Hitler 'lite’s' is endless. Who are we to mete out death? I’m really conflicted about all of this. I don’t want America to stand for torture and summary execution; yet Hussein was on par with the worst of the worst. I’m also not a proponent of the death penalty per se; at least not as its administered today. Yet there are crimes that demand the solemnity of execution. But we hand it out like after-dinner mints. Innocent people are executed every year. I happen to believe that locking someone up for life is a worse punishment – and I want murderers and rapists to suffer; I’ll make no bones about that. Locking someone up for 40 years in a 5x7 foot cell – no books, no TV – just their own foul mind for company; now I can really get behind that as suitable punishment. But that’s me – that’s my opinion. I’d really like to hear yours.

[karena]

I oppose the death penalty and executions no matter who it is or what it is they have done. It makes my soul hurt, it makes me weep. I am not a religious person, but a spiritual one and I have been posting this quote on many a blog today.

...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

John Donne

[Diva Jood]

We all feel dirty because Der Leader invaded Iraq illegally, and overthrew a tyrant that his Daddy and Reagan helped to establish. We feel dirty because we are universally hated for allowing this illegal presidency to continue unchecked. We feel dirty because we have become a nation lead by tyrants. We have become murderers, war criminals, and liars. We feel dirty because this stink rubs off on us.

And I STILL have hope for change.

[Ortizzle]

All of the video-taping and making a spectacle of the execution *are* in bad taste, regardless of how horrible Saddam was.

But can we in the U.S. really hold our heads high or look our noses down on such practices when... we are one of the few countries in the world that has not abolished the death penalty? The only countries as active as we are in applying the death penalty are China, Iran and the Congo.

As for G.W. carrying around his Saddam trophy: nothing surprises me about him. I don't consider that he represents me or the country. Unfortunately, he *does* represent a lot of unthinking, ignorant racists out there.