it didn't take long for a bootleg copy of the execution of Saddam Hussein to make it onto the open market. Someone smuggled it out to Al Jazeera almost immediately, and the Arab Street is up in arms about what it apparently shows: Witnesses jeering and taunting Saddam Hussein while he is on the gallows, while the rope is being pulled taut, while the trap door is being sprung.
Sadly, it doesn't surprise me. I am, as everyone knows who reads the blog regularly, categorically opposed to the death penalty, so what I have to say on the subject isn't really in the realm of reasoned and logical response, but...
If you are reduced to having to put someone to death, shouldn't it be done with a little dignity? A little solemnity? A little respect for the fact that you are killing someone?
After all, it was no less an august personage than Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Polygamy) who said, "the death penalty is the way we demonstrate our respect for human life"...
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Taunting Saddam on the Gallows
Posted by Farnsworth68 at 3:58 PM
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9 Comments:
It's a complete mess. The execution looked like something out of a documentaty of the middle ages. The sad thing is that this empowers the memory of a dictator and a murderer.
This frightens me for the soldiers over there, it's going to get only worse for them.
It should be noted no Americans were on the gallows platform. As for what the camel humpers do....who gives a royal duck!! They're a bunch of religious fruitcakes from the 17th century. I feel sorry for him myself. He died much too quickly. Two or three weeks dangling at the end of that rope would have been much more fitting.
"If you are reduced to having to put someone to death, shouldn't it be done with a little dignity? A little solemnity? A little respect for the fact that you are killing someone?"
The fact is that we have put 100-200 thousand citizens of Iraq to death in two wars and a long and vicious embargo where children suffered the most. I've been in war and found having a twisted sense of humor is the only way you survive.
I notice 'Catch 22' is on your favorite book list. I read it before I crossed the 'big pond', so I knew what was waiting for me...LOL
I personally think the hanging of Saddam should have been on Pay Per View television. A mirror into our souls (and it would help reduce the National Debt)
UH1Charlie (over)
Every execution of a notorious figure seems to carry with it its own carnival atmosphere.
I can still recall being absolutely appalled at the media circus surrounding the Ted Bundy execution in 1989.
You can supply your own horrifying example, but the bottom line is that it's still the taking of a human life, and we as a "civilized" people should have no part in that.
I agree about death penalty but disagree about it having dignity. If you are going to be a bastard barbarian and take someones life as punishment you might as well make it as gruesome as possible!
Life in a box is much crueler than death by hanging!
I was horrified as well. A famous world leader heckled, harangued, and forced to endure a barrage of insults from a crowd of howling baboons.
Oh, wait...are we talking about Saddam's execution or Cindy Sheehan's appearance at that press conference yesterday?
Nice blog! Very inspiring!
I am appalled that they chose hanging. That's just so creepy. I am generally opposed to the death penalty, too, and think that if you are going to do it, you need to make it humane, even for a jackass like Saddam Hussein. Can't they send the components of a lethal injection over there. I know what they are (can't tell--pharmacy trade secret :-) ), and I can assure you that they are not that expensive or hard to find. Two of them are readily available in the household of most elderly Americans.
If they really wanted justice for Saddam, they should have given him to the Kurds. Then he would have gotten his just desserts. However, I am happy he didn't get the Noriega treatment. That jerk got captured at our expense, had a trial in America at our expense, and is sitting his fat arse in a dry, warm, and semi-humane prison at our expense. And, how many Americans don't have health coverage. Hmmm, what's wrong with this picture?
No harm, no foul. That's between the towelheads.
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