Virgil61 Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 Well it's a done deal. I'm not a fan of the death penalty in general but I can't help thinking 'good riddance' to a man responsible for so many of his own people's deaths. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Titus001 Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 lol saddam did bad things but do we have a right to invade a country and occupy a nation just b/c he was a bad leader?It seems to me the war was a lie and all the things they said about WMD'S was false and lies to lure the usa people in a war that did not benefit its people and you can say the iraq people also.We must ask this,who did this war benefit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virgil61 Posted December 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 lol saddam did bad things but do we have a right to invade a country and occupy a nation just b/c he was a bad leader?It seems to me the war was a lie and all the things they said about WMD'S was false and lies to lure the usa people in a war that did not benefit its people and you can say the iraq people also.We must ask this,who did this war benefit? Fine. The post is about Saddam's execution not about the legitimacy of the invasion, WMDs and occupation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Neil Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 This will be seen by many Arabs to be a decision forced by Western hands, regardless as to whether that is the case or not. He will presently become a Martyr. Far better to have let him live out his days in ignominy in a cramped cell, like Rudolf Hess. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Augusta Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 This will be seen by many Arabs to be a decision forced by Western hands, regardless as to whether that is the case or not. He will presently become a Martyr. Far better to have let him live out his days in ignominy in a cramped cell, like Rudolf Hess. My sentiments entirely, Neil. And the whole media circus surrounding his death was quite the most distasteful journalism I've ever seen. But it's what this modern, media-driven world expects. I'm surprised they didn't throw in a few variety acts as a build-up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spittle Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 If, at the very best, the West does not be percieved as behind this it will raise tensions between sunni and shia (Most judges were Shii'a and Amnesty International said it was a forgone conclusion). On a personal level I felt sorry for an old man being surrounded by masked men and legally murdered....and I know if anyone deserved it it was him. I don't know how a country with the death penalty can consider itself fully civilized. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Northern Neil Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 On a personal level I felt sorry for an old man being surrounded by masked men and legally murdered....and I know if anyone deserved it it was him. I agree. The apparant dignity with which Saddam conducted himself in his final moments will further enhance his hero and martyr status in years to come. If anyone won a PR victory here, it was him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spittle Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 Rudolf Hess. Manuel Noriega. Imprisoned and left to naturally fade from public memory. Che Guevara. (Killed on the direct orders of Pres' L.B.Johnson) turned into a legend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Augusta Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 If, at the very best, the West does not be percieved as behind this it will raise tensions between sunni and shia (Most judges were Shii'a and Amnesty International said it was a forgone conclusion). On a personal level I felt sorry for an old man being surrounded by masked men and legally murdered....and I know if anyone deserved it it was him. I don't know how a country with the death penalty can consider itself fully civilized. Totally agree, Paul. I know this may be a bit off-topic - but perhaps not entirely....but I saw BBC News 24 today interviewing Kurdish exiles in a London restaurant. The Kurds were understandably upset that Saddam had not had to stand trial for the massacre of their people in 1988 (it was 180,000), and they therefore feel they have had no justice. I could understand this fully. If Saddam was truly being tried for all his crimes, then surely his massacre of the Kurds should have formed part of that. Forgive me for being cynical, but isn't this just a case of 'the Kurds don't count'. Bush has what he wants. He couldn't get Bin Laden so he got Saddam. The guilty verdict was for the 100 or so Shi'ites killed at Dujail. I find it all a bit ham-fisted. All I know is that I am very, very frightened about the reprisals of this. Not perhaps immediately but a few years down the road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spittle Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 International politics.Iraq. MY OPINION. By allowing the Iraqi Shi'ites the illusion of power (Saddam's trial and execution) they are less likely to try and break from Iraq and join their co-religionist's over the border in Iran. Taking a hell of a lot of oil fields with them! By doing the same with the Kurds they could encourage a cry for total independence that could domino into the Kurd area's of several neighbouring countries. Turkey is a source of constant pressure against the west empowering the Iraqi Kurds, for obvious reasons. As for justice in Iraq I can only imagine some kind of Truth and Reconcilliation Committee (as in South Africa and Rwanda) but this can only happen AFTER the events and violence. Catch 22. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaius Octavius Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 EQUAL JUSTICE FOR ALL! Let's take a historical tour. After WWI, Italy was to get Kurdistan. Nixed by Brits and French. Iran-Iraq war, paid for and supported by U.S. Saddam Hussein figures that Kuwait is his reward. Bush I, sucker-punches Hussein by allowing the U.S. ambassador to tell Hussein (the U.S's. then pal) that it would not be a concern of the U.S. if borders are 'adjusted'. (Prior to this, during the Iran crisis, Kuwait would not allow U.S. war ships to call at their ports nor allow oil tankers to fly their flag.) Kuwaiti ambassador's daughter pulls a little fraud in U.S. Congress. Badman Hussein gets kicked out of Kuwait. General Schwarzkopf gets 'snookered' by sneaky Iraqi generals. War planes can't fly, but helicopters can! Quite a Caesar! Badman gives Shi'ias and Kurds a lesson with helicopters, poison, etc. For whatever the current 'stated' reason is, Hussein and his cronies are relieved of their duties. In all this, hundreds of thousands are killed, maimed and wounded. Am I to understand that the entire Hussein dynasty could not have been assassinated by the most powerful nation in the world at the cost of a few bullets and/or bombs and a handsome payoff? Hussein did away with his sons-in-law quite inexpensively. In Cambodia, millions were murdered by their communist tyrants. Vietnam kicked them out. Now, one of the former tyrants is prime minister, and in an underhanded way allowing his pals to get off the hook. Badman was a piker compared to this lad. Will his time come? Then there are the Argentine admirals; the former head murderer of Guatemala; the now lapsed Pinochet, and the slavers of Christians in Mauritania. Not to forget the goings on in the Sudan, Zambia, and several other sub-Saharan nations. Is Khadaffi on the menu? And Osama is still on the loose. What am I thinking about! The U.S. is not involved with 'nation building' - paraphrasing Afganicus Iraqicus. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nagelfar Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 Strange, Bush II Imperator was not granted a triumph in Washington by the senate? What has the world come to... On a more serious side I agree with spittle "On a personal level I felt sorry for an old man being surrounded by masked men and legally murdered....and I know if anyone deserved it it was him." Besides the humanitarian aspect, Saddam probably had a lot of information that is now gone forever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Virgil61 Posted December 30, 2006 Author Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 ...... If Saddam was truly being tried for all his crimes, then surely his massacre of the Kurds should have formed part of that. Forgive me for being cynical, but isn't this just a case of 'the Kurds don't count'. Bush has what he wants. He couldn't get Bin Laden so he got Saddam. The guilty verdict was for the 100 or so Shi'ites killed at Dujail. I find it all a bit ham-fisted. All I know is that I am very, very frightened about the reprisals of this. Not perhaps immediately but a few years down the road. I completely agree with the part above. Why execute him for those murders only? There is a long list of atrocities he's responsible for. In 2003 I personally witnessed a mini-killing fields of sorts where several thousand Shia remains were dumped over a period of years from the prisons. I saw families walking to pick through uprooted remains trying to identify loved ones. In late '91 my unit went into Northern Iraq to protect the Kurdish refugees including survivors of the gas attacks. Gruesome stories and a lot of deaths from exposure in the mountains as well. Remember the Nuremburg trials and Ceacescu's execution didn't produce martyrs. I understand the fears of making a martyr are well founded, yet I'm not sure that the abject stupidity of a non-victimized part of the Iraqi and Arab population willing to make Saddam one should really matter. Saddam was no Che, he was a lot closer to Stalin or Hitler. Everyone's made some good points I think, yet his death leaves me still with a feeling of 'good riddance'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Augusta Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 Remember the Nuremburg trials and Ceacescu's execution didn't produce martyrs. I understand the fears of making a martyr are well founded, yet I'm not sure that the abject stupidity of a non-victimized part of the Iraqi and Arab population willing to make Saddam one should really matter. Saddam was no Che, he was a lot closer to Stalin or Hitler. With the best will in the world, Virgil, I don't think this is the same problem. I can't speak for Ceacescu as I know next to nothing about it, but after Nuremburg, we weren't left with a global ideal - merely a national one. The few staunch Nazis who remained had not infilitrated their ideals on a worldwide basis. A few disenchanted SS officers gathering for Sepp Dietrich's funeral hardly constituted a world threat. Islam, however, has spread far and wide. This is what worries me about this. I am not talking about a few malcontents of the old Ba'ath party who followed Saddam, but the Arab world who - whatever their views of Saddam - may feel that the greater evil here is the Western world fighting Islam. On our TV here last night there was an Arab leader who said that as far as he was concerned, executing a Moslem on the eve of Eid was insensitive in the extreme, and he saw it as a 'Christian Crusade'. Whatever the rights or wrongs of his arguments, this is how much of the Arab world will perceive this. This is my fear. We already know that Iran are next on the US's hit list. Where does it end? However, don't ask me for a solution - for I confess, I have none, but my fears have been growing for a long time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Horatius Posted December 30, 2006 Report Share Posted December 30, 2006 (edited) If, at the very best, the West does not be percieved as behind this it will raise tensions between sunni and shia (Most judges were Shii'a and Amnesty International said it was a forgone conclusion). "As a noose was tightened around Hussein's neck, one of the executioners yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr," -CNN Yeah that's gonna help things out :/ Here is how one Sunni perceives it at least "Basically, with this execution, what the Americans are saying is "Look- Sunni Arabs- this is your man, we all know this. We're hanging him- he symbolizes you." And make no mistake about it, this trial and verdict and execution are 100% American." http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ What a mess. Edited December 30, 2006 by Horatius Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts