I don't have a good subject to put in this line.

[boston bean]

I went to bed early last night. I just didn't want to watch the show. I fell asleep around 9pm. I just really didn't know how I felt about the whole thing. I am against the death penaltly. And I felt like the whole thing was unraveling at such a quick pace that there would be nothing anyone could do to stop it. I really felt conflicted.

I woke up this morning around 7am and the first thing I see is Sadam walking to the gallows with hooded men. They put a black cloth around his neck and I thought they would cut away. I continue watching and I'm saying they're gonna show it, they're gonna show it. Then they put that huge noose around his neck, Sadam doesn't look scared. Then they cut away. And they show Sadam wrapped in a white sheet, dead.


The officials say Sadam was officially in Iraqi custody, but the US is the one who captured him, the US held him through the trial, held him after the trial an up until minutes before his hanging. They gave the Iraq Government Sadam physical custody so they could hang him.

I don't know about the rest of this country, but when I saw that noose go around this monsters neck, I felt like a monster. We can't wash the blood off our hands on this one, it's there for everyone to see. We are just as barbaric as the barbarians. We did to Sadam what he did to others. This is not justice in a civilized world.

[Roland99]

1. Actually, the US *didn't* capture Saddam. Iraqis found him in that hole and turned him over.

[boston bean]

2. really, read this.

Ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is in custody following his dramatic capture by US forces in Iraq.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we got him," US administrator Paul Bremer told journalists in Baghdad, to loud cheers from Iraqis in the audience.

Saddam Hussein was found in a tiny cellar at a farmhouse about 15km (10 miles) south of his hometown Tikrit.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has welcomed the news, saying it "removes the shadow" hanging over Iraq.

Saddam Hussein, 66, was the most wanted man on the list issued by US authorities but had not been seen since Baghdad fell to US forces in April.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3317429.stm

[Roland99]

8. Oh, I remember the spin. Do you remember *this*?

We got him: Kurds say they caught Saddam
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/12/21/1071941612613.html

[Lasher]

11. Thanks Roland99, I did not know that.

Looks like a variation of the old Jessica Lynch ploy.

[boston bean]

14. very true, I seem to remember that now, thanks roland.

[CJCRANE]

3. He looked almost dignified.

I don't see how this can be morally or emotionally satisfying.

For instance in Romania there was a revolution, they captured Ceaucescu and put him before a firing squad as soon as they were able. I can understand that. Milosevic was tried at the Hague and I again I can understand that due to the circumstances of the war. But this war, the occupation and Saddam's trial all seems to be a sham.

[peacetalksforall]

4. I'm with you MassDemm.

We've just reigned down six years of the worst leadership imaginable. It is unbearable. I've had decades of being told how superior this country is. What a grand lie.

[ixion]

5. We are the new barbarians of the world. I felt something similar to this in 2003

when we illegally invaded Iraq, and in 2002, when we illegally invaded Afghanistan, and when Abu Gharib was revealed, and when Gitmo was revealed, and on and on.


It's a sick, disturbing feeling. There are some choices made -- in this case collective choices -- that cannot be undone. The things we are doing are very bad. It will take decades, if not centuries, to atone for them in the eyes of the world community. We have forever tarnished our image as a 'free' nation. We are barbarians now, in the eyes of the world, like it or not. Things like executions only make matters worse, not better. Violence solves nothing. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zippo. Violence leads only to more violence. It's just that simple.

It's so simple, in fact, that we've been unable to realize this sublime concept in over 10,000 years of coexistence. You don't have to go back very far to find evidence for this statement, but you can. Humans have a long history of barbarism. It seems to be something hardwired, a survival instinct perhaps. Yet in that, ironically, it is a design flaw, because violence begets violence.

Will we ever learn? Maybe, but as I grow older I become more skeptical. The scene we're playing out now has been played out thousands of times in our history, and yet we fail to learn any lesson.

It does not bode well for our species, IMO.

[dddem]

6. I agree

This morning, it's as if there is no other news to report. I question how we can call ourselves a civilized society when we rejoice in someone's death (no matter how evil we perceive them to be). As someone who beleives in God, and tries to live by the values Jesus taught, I can't feel okay about destroying a life,which, according to me beliefs,God created.Regardless of how you might feel about the life he lived, I honestly don't get the concept of celebrating his death. Macabre is the word that comes to mind. And I don't think it speaks very well of us all. This whole things saddens me, not because of Sadam, but because of our morbid curiosity of it all.

[saigon68]

7. These images come to mind

[fasttense]

9. They turned a criminal into a Martyr by hanging him.

Already rumors of the missing body are about.

[cassiepriam]

10. Our national sport has become killing Iraqis.

We are monsters, and the blood is on all of our hands.

Just like all Germans were tainted by Hitler,
we will all be tainted by Bush.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

12. "Just like all Germans were tainted by Hitler, we will all be tainted by Bush". You speak the truth

and we now know that a few amoral criminals can run a country into the ground while its people watch in helpless horror.

We are all accomplices, and it feels like hell. MKJ

[Usrename]

13. Yep, the American despot.

History will not compare Bush to other Presidents, but he will be compared with other tyrants.