And so Saddam Hussein has been executed. All his victims have been returned to life and all Saddam’s wrongs have been righted.
Sorry, I got carried away. Let me start again.
And so Saddam Hussein has been executed. All his victim’s families are rejoicing at his death. All of America is rejoicing because the cause of 9/11 has been removed from this Earth.
Sorry, Again I got carried away. Saddam was not an instigator of 9/11.
And so Saddam Hussein has been executed. All of his supporters are calling him a martyr and are preparing to suicide Iraq into the stone age.
I must stop this. Iraq is already back in the stone age. GW Bush, Dick Cheney and Haliburton ensured that would happen.
So just what purpose did the execution of Saddam Hussein perform?
None whatsoever!
Well, maybe it gives closure to GW Bush et al. Perhaps it satisfies some primitive revenge reflex which seems to exist within the American and other primitive psyches. Surely revenge would have been better served cold by an ongoing humiliation. Saddam no longer feels the justified hatred of the rest of the world.
Surely holding him in solitary detention and parading him before the masses on public holidays would be better. Placing him into the stocks after the parade would give everyone with a rotten tomato, or a well matured disposable nappy (diaper) a chance to share in the revenge.
How do I feel? I feel empty. Another human being has been done to death by his fellow humans. We, Christian and Muslim, who believe in the same God, who have heard that God pronounce that vengeance is His, have again pre-empted Him and assumed that the penalty we see as appropriate is the same penalty that our God would want.
Once again I am led back to John Donne’s words which apply to ALL people, not just our loved ones, our friends or those we admire. These words apply to EVERYONE!
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece
of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by
the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: 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.
Ærchies Archive - Digital Detritus 
John Donne pretty much sums up how I feel right now. Saddam was a murderous dictator but I don’t agree with the death penalty under any circumstances. I also find the speed of his execution to be highly suspicious. The ink was barely dry on his death warrant. I see the hand of George Bush in this.
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“Ah gawt the man that tried to kill mah daddy.”
The US and Iraq, two benighted countries ruled by the same gang of idiots.
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Helen, I’m quite sure the hand that pulls Bush’s puppet strings is the same hand which motivated the Iraqi “Government”.
Metro – “The US and Iraq, two benighted countries ruled by the same gang of idiots.” – stolen for my taglines file!
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Iraq needed this. George Bush didn’t. The Iraqi court convicted him, George Bush didn’t…
It is not my place to say whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. That is up to the people of Iraq.
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Doctorbulldog, It is interesting to see your point of view. Just one question. Which planet are you on? George Bush orchestrated the whole thing, from before the invasion!
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Someone in another group commented this morning that the death of Saddam Hussein was a political hot potato. I agree. And it will have as much effect on the trouble in the Middle East as one hot potato would! Waste of time, waste of money, waste of life. Yes, he was a blood-thirsty dictator, yes, he was a genocidal egomaniac, yes, he caused the deaths of untold thousands of his “countrymen” (which country was artifically formed by France and England at the end of the 1st World War, by the way!) and yes, he should have been tried and dealt with by an *International* Court and not by some jumped-up “Kangaroo Court”, but this death is useless. It will form more martyrs, more bloodshed (so far approximately 77 people have died as a result of it) and will exacerbate the troubles rather than cure them.
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What?? George Bush orchestrated this? GWB couldn’t orchestrate his way out of a paper bag. His HANDLERS orchestrated this.
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True enough. Curtis at Can’t See the Forest mentioned that the crimes for which he was executed took place when he was sponsored by Ronald Reagan. That’s not something that got a lot of publicity.
The Americans had the Iraqis convict and execute him because this way they keep their hands clean and avoid a “Noriega Situation” where their own actions are called into question.
He should have been tried at the Hague, under international law.
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hmh, I apologise. It was not my intention to give the impression that GWB actually goes through a thought process.
raincoaster, precisely! And then put in the stocks!
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I really like the idea of parading Saddam around in irons and putting him in the stocks rather than killing him. It seems so much more fitting, so much more humiliating for him. Then, after we impeach GWB, they could be paraded around together and put in the stocks.
I have never been that happy with capital punishment. There is enough death dealt in the world without using it as revenge.
Shunning. Now that is a good punishment, especially when executed properly. A truly shunned person is totally on their own and may indeed die from it due to starvation. But being shunned can be reversed should the person be seen to have expiated their crimes sufficiently. You can’t reverse a hanging. At least, not at the present time.
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I hadn’t thought of shunning. Walking around with a big “D” branded on his forehead – sounds good!
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