[Here is a special message from the one member of Fluid Imagination who understands what it means to kill - Ed.]
So Saddam Hussein is guilty of committing crimes against humanity and is going to be hanged by the neck until dead. Ordering the death of 148 people is a crime against humanity. Mission accomplished.
My first reaction to this was, “Shit, this reality-show has such a predictable ending.†This was followed by asking myself how Texan frontier-justice found its way into international policy. And then I was like, “Oh yeah, that fuck-head Bush†(and I’ll spare the rhetorical banter, I know Bush didn’t really come up with that sentence).
But seriously, he is to be hanged?!?! To me a real crime against humanity (the most melodramatic charge ever) is breaking someone’s neck and then strangling them. He ordered the death of 148 people. I know that’s evil shit and everything, but a crime against humanity…come on. I honestly thought that stuff went out with John Wesley Harding.
Napoleon, not even French, overthrew much of the European monarchies only to name himself not only the Emperor of France, but the King of Italy, the Mediator of the Swiss, and Protector of the German States. So what happened when his war machine broke down during a particularly harsh Moscow winter? Did the still-standing kings of Europe kill this short upstart from Cecily? No! He was given a little island retreat for the rest of his life. And when he escaped from it and started another war, was he killed for that? No, he was re-exiled, this time to a more distant island, and that was in the 1820s for Christ’s sake.
How about Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate State of America? This guy lost a war that killed over half a million Americans, a number about equal to all American casualties in all wars since the Revolution. Did we hang him? No, he was jailed for two years and then freed. He finished out his days traveling and managing a successful life-insurance company, not to mention he was secretary of war under Franklin Pierce [While this is true, Franklin Pierce was President before the civil war - Ed.].
Joseph Stalin? He killed about 6 million of his own people, while we focused on amassing a shit-ton of atomic weapons. Old-age got the better of him. He died of a stroke at 74.
And as Saddam looks at 70 (his birthday is in April), it seems that time might be the only card left up his sleeve, because Iraqis wont execute someone over the age of 70. Cowards. So Saddam sits in a cell, counting down the days until his birthday. If all goes well, he is planning a really killer bash for his 71st, maybe Spain. But for now, he is a marked man, guilty before proven innocent.
Our victory was never a question in the war: we’re America. But was this war really about the 148 Saddam had killed? Did 2,827 US soldiers really die so that we could hang Saddam over the death of 148? Or is that just the only thing we can stick him with? You know, since there are no WMDs and no Al-Qaeda links. Just 148 Shi’a who may have tried to assassinate him in 1982. But what he can legally be proven guilty of seems secondary to a culture that sees war like any other moving picture. Iraq or ultimate fighting. Let’s just see their team captain dead, and that’ll mean we won.
Mission accomplished.
12 Comments
On a similar note, Christopher Hitens has a piece on Slate.com about why they shouldn’t hang Saddam. Here is the reason I liked best:
But here is the reason that is most fun, in a conspiratorial sense:
Personally, I’m simply against the death penalty, period.
are you sure that bush didn’t come up with that sentence? - i wouldn’t be surprised if he did… - i think the u.s. definitely had a voice in that trial… - how long has it been since saddam was caught? - how many opportunities did the right person from the u.s. have to talk to the judge on the phone or deliver a suitcase with money or a big box of hookers? - of course… - this is speculation… - but… - i don’t see how the u.s. would allow saddam to get off with a slap on the wrist… - after all their talk about how evil this man is and how we would roo the day if we didn’t invade iraq and left him in power…
there obviously wasn’t/isn’t a problem with dropping bombs on al-zarqawi intentionally or however how many bombs they’ve dropped on whoever… - but… - for the man who was sooooo evil and had to be stopped… - what do we do? - we capture him and put him on magazines to boost the ego of the u.s. like we deserve the admiration of the world for capturing a man who’s dick we used to service…
and here we are… - supplying 300,000 iraqi troops with weapons and training so they can defend their own nation…
isn’t that what we did with al-qaeda/taliban when russia invaded afganistan?
this is a fucking mess…
Not to mention, the sentence comes less than a week before a set of mid-term elections in which the G.O.P. is trying to stave off predicted gains by the “war-soft” Dems. Hmm.
Nor to mention that the actual verdict won’t be released until Thursday. This is from MSNBC’s “Saddam Verdict Lacks Details:”
No, there’s no reason to doubt their word. Not one bit.
So instead of killing him they should let him rot in prison? Sounds like trouble to me unless they keep him in a prison in cuba, or germany.
No, they should make him sit in prison, and let all the survivors who want to come and confront him on a daily basis.
chalk one up for the democratic party and my district’s democratic candidates…
i voted…
though i’m still nervous…
Kyle I would worry about people trying to break him out. Remember the guy has a couple billion dollars hidden away, you can thank france and germany for that, and Iraq is not the safest place right now or when our troops leave and we finally invade Iran, I mean come home.Just hang him and get it over with, can’t wait for that youtube clip.
Damn I wish i registered….
I’m definitely not opposed to the death penalty, but I don’t know where I stand on this.
On the one hand, he killed a bunch of people. Therefore he failed at life and should be done away with. On the other hand I do like the sound of a more elongated public trial where all types of other questions may be answered.
…actually isn’t it already public knowledge that we supplied Saddam with the chemicals he used to gas the Kurds and then we turned our backs on the Kurds when they literally came to Washington for help?
Yeah, my impression of the situation was that the U.S. told the Kurds to attack Saddam, that we’d back them up. So they tried to kill him, looked to us for the promised backup, and we gave them the old, “Don’t know whatcha talkin’ about. But, hey, look! Saddam is using biological weapons against his own people!”
He used the crap we gave him on the kurds in the late 70’s early 80s when he was fighting Iran.
During desert storm when the iraqi forces were retreating they went through the shiite south and some rebels thought that the americans were going to follow and destroy saddam and his forces. They saw this as a good time to rebel, bad move as they were crushed. At the same time in the north the kurds thought this is a good time for us to rebel, another bad move as they got chased into the mountains were they dies from well living in the mountains.