Saddam Hussein sentenced to death by hanging...

Remove all ads!

when ever any force uses artillery, cruise missiles and mass bombardment theyre creating similar situations

 

I was not exactly talking about that kind of collateral damage. There is a difference between the collateral damage created by a missile and the collateral damage created by a bunch of death squads terrorizing and destroying communities. The motives and the magnitude of the damage is quite different.

 

i disagree, a death squad is merely a less advanced cruise missile, theyre both designed to do the same, kill and terrorise.. only the cost is completely different- the US and UK can afford to use them and stand on a moral high ground... and arab nations cannot and come off looking like senseless killers

 

I like to quote two people who I agree very much with.

First, Richard Sale:

And then, Pat Lang

Nothing to add.

 

@Argohir:

No, they can't. Thing is, no matter how many and what atrocities one has committed, one's still a human being and to be treated as such. Kind of a tough test for those with moral high ground, but moral high ground is not achieved through just being the guy who retaliates, not the one that strikes first. There's more to it.

 

Josef Mengele.

 

Still human.

 

Quite disturbing, all the way around. Someone took a cellphone video of the hanging. It's online (I saw it on google video).

I doubt there's any way of executing someone that isn't fundamentally thuggish, but this seems particularly bad. Especially given that one of the guards chants "Moqtada Moqtada Moqtada" before the execution, and some of the guards chant Shia slogans afterward: the whole thing will probably come off as sectarian.

Here's a transcript from the cellphone vid (translation courtesy healingiraq.blogspot.com)

Of course, Bush calling this a 'milestone' won't help for those who want to call this an American-sponsored execution.

 

Not to mention the obvious shia reference in this show. It will not be lost on the Sunni.

Mr. Lang has a good point when he calls the execution 'AQ' style. It looks like one of those videos by Al Zwahiri.

I find it tell-tale whenever I see masked men acting in government functions, like in that video. I regularly read the remarkable US publication "The Advisor", the Good News from the Green Zone. The bottom line is always: 'it's improving' and 'the government takes tough action'. If that is so, why do they have to blur the faces of those working at the American or Iraqi Government's side, or photograph them turned away? Clearly, because the security situation in Iraq is improving.

That is one thing, and so, while the US tells us and themselves everything's swell, and that the sovereign Iraqi national government is getting stronger by the day, and that the sovereign Iraqi national government has veto rights on US actions and is to be informed about US actions, something like that happens: On 27 December 2006, one of Sadr's aides is shot and killed in an early morning raid on his home in Nijaf. The raiding force had 8 American advisers and 35 Iraqi soldiers. That's almost 1 American for every 4 Iraqis. How much advice do they need?
So, while the Iaqis nominally have "provincial control", and although the US spokesperson claims the raid was Iraqi planned and executed (right, the advisors were probably driving the trucks ), Maliki claims he had no previous knowledge of the raid. Maliki openly demanded an explanation, but untill now he is waiting. Probably for security reasons.

It sais nothing less than that the US has Iraqi troops outside the Iraqi government's chain of command. And that is evidently because they don't trust the Iraqi government. At the same time they also don't seem to trust their Iraqis enough to let them off the leash and hunt without tight US supervision. That means, if the US want to get things done their way, they have to run the show themselves.

Saddam was in US custody, and the Iraqis didn't get their hands on him. For the execution he was hauled from his prison on the US base at Baghdad airport, or, more likely, he was executed there because transporting him was too risky. But we are to believe that his execution now was merely the action of the sovereign Iraqi government. Right.

 

No, no. The most horrifying deeds are all easily within the limits of human capacity. The history of our species is dripping blood for a reason. The thing is in all societies there are limitations for what is acceptable. What can be done to one's own kind - and in fewer cases to other creatures as well. The utopia civilization.

You cannot murder or torture from within that sphere of civilization. No matter what. Invariably you will have left it and joined those to whom you unjustifiably feel morally superior. The boundaries are breached, all you pretend to uphold will have become hollow, you end up bankrupt. It is very simple.

[ December 31, 2006, 19:24: Message edited by: Dendri ]

 

humans are the worst creatures on this planet, humans commit cruel deeds for pleasure whereas any other species does it for instinct

 

Demonstrably untrue.

 

That video was horrible. This whole execution is made for provocation. They didn't even let him finish his prayer. And that "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada" voices will be a "milestone" for the civil war in Iraq.

 

I agree with those who point out that it is not possible to take oneself out of the sphere of humanity by one's actions.

If you allow that argument you present would-be murderers, whether official or not, whether mass or individual, with a justification for murder that is all too elastic.

Yes, how comforting if we could put people like Mengele into the not-human category. But we can't, not without sacrificing the values that allow us to condemn his actions.

BTW re my previous post concerning the TV report that his body was to be withheld from burial - now the report is that his body was buried in Tikrit, his hometown.

 

I preface my remarks with this:
I am a birthright citizen of the USA so I therefore still have the legal right to criticize the USA.

I question the legality of the decision. If the court was untainted it would be the right of the country to decide the accused fate but.....

As to whether hanging or the death penalty is right that is a moral decision and not a legal one.

 

But it's a Shia government...what other decision would one expect? The US knew when it handed Saddam over for trial in Iraq, with an installed Shia government (an elected government, btw), what the outcome would be, as did everyone else in the world. The outcome is legal, but hardly impartial.

 

i question the legality of those elections

 

And the reason is...?

 

oh come on, dont you think its convenient that the elected government happens to have the US's full blessing, and happens to have been mostly assembled by the US?

 

No, you come on. First, people went and voted, who had never cast a ballot in their lives. Second, they did so under threats to themselves and their families by those who opposed any kind of representative, or constitutional government. Sorry, if the outcome did not suit you, but the population of Iraq is largely Shia, which was tough if you were a Sunni.