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Saddam Hussein to be Executed Soon

by BooMan
Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 07:58:44 AM EST

NBC is reporting that Saddam could be hanged as early as today.

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, sentenced to death for his role in 148 killings in 1982, will have his sentence carried out by Sunday, NBC News reported Thursday. According to a U.S. military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity, Saddam will be hanged before the start of the Eid religious holiday, which begins at sundown Saturday.
The hanging could take place as early as Friday, NBC’s Richard Engel reported.
The U.S. military received a formal request from the Iraqi government to transfer Saddam to Iraqi authorities, NBC reported on Thursday, which is one of the final steps required before his execution. His sentence, handed down last month, ordered that he be hanged within 30 days.

I am generally opposed to the death penalty. We've seen plenty of evidence here in America that innocent people get convicted on a regular basis. I don't think the justice system can be improved to the degree necessary to assure that innocent people are not put to death. And, therefore, I support a permanent moratorium on executions.

However, the question of what to do with heads of state like Adolph Hitler or Saddam Hussein is a little bit of a different question. Their guilt in not in question. Their acts are there for all to see. The decision on what to do with Saddam Hussein is now complicated by the sectarian violence that is already broiling in Iraq.

With at least 72 more Iraqis killed in sectarian violence, U.S. officials and Iraqis expressed concern about the potential for even worse bloodshed following Saddam's execution. His lawyer, Khalil al-Dulaimi, said transferring Saddam to Iraqi authorities could be the trigger.
"If the American administration insists in handing the president to the Iraqis, it would commit a great strategic mistake which would lead to the escalation of the violence in Iraq and the eruption of a destructive civil war," al-Dulaimi told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

I don't really know how much worse things might get if/when Saddam is executed. I suppose we can be fairly sure that it will not help. On the other hand, it will bring some finality to the era of Saddam and eliminate any prospect that he will ever resume control over the country. And if there is any really solid justification for executing Saddam, that would be the argument that I would make.

Regardless, the situation in Iraq remains completely untenable.

At least 30 Iraqis died Thursday in bombings and shootings, including a suicide bombing in a crowd of people waiting to buy kerosene near a stadium in Baghdad that killed 10, according to police. Police also said 42 bodies of tortured men were found dumped in the Iraqi capital Thursday.
The U.S. military in Iraq announced five more American troop deaths: four soldiers hit by roadside bombs on patrol and a Marine killed in combat in volatile western Iraq. The Department of Defense also identified three more American servicemen who died in Iraq this week that hadn't been previously reported, according to an AP analysis.
The figures raised the U.S. troop deaths this month to 103, second only to the 105 service members who died in October. At least 2,991 members of the U.S. military have been killed since the Iraq war began in March 2003, according to an AP count.
The al-Qaida in Iraq cell leader allegedly responsible for the deaths of two of the servicemen was arrested Tuesday in a raid south of Baghdad, the military said. Al-Qaida in Iraq had claimed it killed the two U.S. soldiers found dead in June - Pfc. Kristian Menchaca of Houston and Pfc. Thomas Tucker of Madras, Ore. Their bodies were recovered after a search by 8,000 U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, dubbed Operation Fallen Eagle.

Every morning Baghdad wakes up to find a few dozen dead young men, usually tortured. How long do we want to be referees in this mayhem?

Saddam Hussein to be Executed Soon | 19 comments (19 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Not enough violence (4.00 / 2)

Bush is determined, there simply is not enough violence in the world. Especially in Iraq. The Bush solution is to publicly humiliate and murder the guy who inspires much of the violence in Iraq now.

People wonder that Bush wants to escalate in Iraq. If he kills Saddam the violence will escalate in orders of magnitude that will astound Americans. the tit-for-tat mentality of Arab men will direct itself at Bush and Americans both in America and around the world. As much of a scum-bag as Saddam is Bush will actually make him a hero for dying in the fight against the Crusaders. US.

The Democratic congress will rubber stamp this "execution" and then act as if they are forced to rubber stamp the Bush troop escalation to quell the violence that will ensue from killing Saddam.

America is the dumbest nation on the planet thanks to Democrats and Republicans. A bunch of stupid reactionary right wing asshole motherfuckers!

by aahpat on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 08:12:48 AM EST

Re: Saddam Hussein to be Executed Soon (4.00 / 4)

...On the other hand, it will bring some finality to the era of Saddam and eliminate any prospect that he will ever resume control over the country. ...

So will a life sentence in prison. Execution is pointless. Let him suffer in a cell.

And a lifetime sentence will avoid the anticipated violence in Iraq.

Oh, there you are, Perry. -Phineas -SLB-

by boran2 (blogistan@yahoo.com) on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 09:27:08 AM EST

Re: Saddam Hussein to be Executed Soon (4.00 / 2)

I agree with you. An execution after that joke of a trial is just begging for more trouble.

But perhaps it will set a precedent for how to deal with our own murderous leader if and when he is held accountable for his actions.

by CabinGirl on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 09:29:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saddam Hussein to be Executed Soon (none / 0)

If only.

Oh, there you are, Perry. -Phineas -SLB-

by boran2 (blogistan@yahoo.com) on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 09:34:57 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saddam Hussein to be Executed Soon (none / 0)

People can always be sprung or ransomed from prison.

by BooMan on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 10:24:37 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saddam Hussein to be Executed Soon (4.00 / 3)

Lemme see...

Saddam Hussein is being executed for murder, essentially.

Right?

I mean, if he stole a government and directly killed no one in the process...like say BushCo...he would not even be on trial.

Right again?

OK.

So how many "unjust" deaths...and if that ain't splitting hairs, I do not know what is... do you think can be placed on his shoulders?

Thousands?

Tens of thousands?

Probably not hundreds of thousands.

The Washingtoon Post

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

Hmmmm...

Say Hussein offed 100,000.

Can Preznit Butch be hanged 6 1/2 times?

I certainly hope so.

S.

Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie.-Mae West

by Arthur Gilroy (arthurgilroy<at>earthlink.net) on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 09:50:38 AM EST

It all gives me a headache (4.00 / 2)

To execute him is to martyr him in the part of the world he comes from. We already know it will create even more violence in Iraq also. I wouldn't have the stomach to execute him and I don't care how bad he is deemed. There is something humane about not murdering murderers and just allowing them to stew alone in their own murdering minds rendered powerless to murder again. I'm sure the days and nights get long and a simple thing like a decent meal and a kind word become important......perhaps there is even place and time to wish one had done something different.

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by Militarytracy on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 10:38:04 AM EST

Re: It all gives me a headache (4.00 / 2)

I'm with you, MT. 1) I don't believe in the death penalty ever, under any circumstances, no matter how heinous the crime, and 2) I actually think life in prison is the worst possible sentence someone could receive. It's more miserable than death, for some.

I want people who have done such deeds to be reminded every day for the rest of their natural lives of the harm they did, and the choices they made that could have been made differently.

And maybe, in some isolated cases, some sort of redemptive awareness becomes possible.

I think revenge and justice are incompatible concepts. The death penalty is all about revenge. A life sentence is all about justice (assuming, of course, that the person was convicted on hard, honest evidence. We know that doesn't always happen.)

"If you look for the social economic motive, you will not have to wait for history to tell you what was propaganda and what was truth." - George Seldes

by Real History Lisa (lpeaseRemoveThis@gte.net) on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 11:53:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Not Just Saddam ... (none / 0)

.
At the trial, two more defendants received the death penalty.

In the meantime, official Iraqi 'puppet' government have executed more than a dozen Iraqi's for criminal and terror offenses.

2006 On 7 September, the Iraqi authorities announced the execution by hanging at Abu Ghraib prison of 27 prisoners, including one woman, convicted of terror and criminal charges. It is the first mass execution since Saddam Hussein's rule.

Saddam, 2 co-defendants sentenced to hang for Shiite slayings

BAGHDAD -- Saddam Hussein, who oversaw the murder of thousands of Iraqis during 24 years as their president, was convicted of committing crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a Shiite Muslim town. Iraq's former leader was sentenced to die by hanging.

Iraqi High Tribunal Chief Judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman took 40 minutes to summarize the 200-page judgment and pronounce Saddam guilty of crimes including murder, torture, imprisonment and forced deportation.

HRW: Questions over Saddam trial justice

"The court decides to sentence Saddam Hussein to execution, hanging until death," Rahman said in his summary.

Saddam was among eight co-defendants accused of revenge killings in the city of Dujail, 35 miles north of Baghdad, after a 1982 assassination attempt on the former dictator. The current Iraqi prime minister's Islamic Dawa party, then an underground opposition, claimed responsibility for organizing the attempt on Saddam's life.

Also convicted and sentenced to death by hanging: Barzan Ibrahim, Saddam's half-brother and Iraq's former intelligence chief, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, former head of the revolutionary court. Former vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan received a life sentence.

But symbolic of the split between the United States and many of its traditional allies over the Iraq war, many European nations voiced opposition to the death sentences in the case, including France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. A leading Italian opposition figure called on the continent to press for Saddam's sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment.

Lost in the drama of Sunday's death sentence was any mention of the failed search for the alleged weapons of mass destruction that Bush said led the United States to invade and occupy Iraq in March 2003.

Saddam's Genocide Trial Gassing Kurds Will Be Halted

≈ Cross-posted diary by Betsy L Angert --
Justice is Served? Saddam Hussein. Death by Hanging © ≈

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

by Oui on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 08:48:36 AM EST

Gassing Kurds (none / 1)

.
May I presume the occupiers didn't particularly like this trial to proceed?

Saddam's Genocide Trial Gassing Kurds Will Be Halted

Dutch Court seeks Saddam testimony on chemical sale

Dutchman Van Anraat - Guilty Verdict in War Crimes Complicity Lethal Gassing Kurds Updated

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

by Oui on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 08:49:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Gassing Kurds (none / 0)

Actually - there's a lot of contradictory evidence re the claim that Saddam gassed the kurds. I can't remember whose study it was - someone at the Pentagon? UN? Someone determined it was more likely that Iran had gassed the Kurds.

I don't know where the truth lies, but I strongly suspect the reason it wasn't the centerpiece of Saddam's trial is that the oft-repeated claim is not nearly so proven as the media would have us believe.

"If you look for the social economic motive, you will not have to wait for history to tell you what was propaganda and what was truth." - George Seldes

by Real History Lisa (lpeaseRemoveThis@gte.net) on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 11:49:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Dutchman Supplied Chemicals to Iraq (none / 1)

Halabja

Meanwhile, the (Dutch) prosecution says that it can prove that chemicals supplied by Frans van Anraat were indeed used in a number of the aforesaid attacks. Prosecutor Fred Teeven has said that the businessman could have known as early as 1984 that Iraq was using poison gas against the country's Kurdish population. Moreover, even after the gruesome pictures of the 1988 attack on Halabja were shown around the world, Frans van Anraat continued to supply the Iraqi regime with thiodiglycol.

Baltimore Firm Part of Probe Of Poison Gas

This was a guilty verdict on America as well

But would the Americans and British dare touch a trial in which we would have not only to describe how Saddam got his filthy gas but why the CIA - in the immediate aftermath of the Iraqi war crimes against Halabja - told US diplomats in the Middle East to claim that the gas used on the Kurds was dropped by the Iranians rather than the Iraqis (Saddam still being at the time our favourite ally rather than our favourite war criminal). Just as we in the West were silent when Saddam massacred 180,000 Kurds during the great ethnic cleansing of 1987 and 1988.

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

by Oui on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 12:23:35 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Dutchman Supplied Chemicals to Iraq (none / 0)

It was the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) that concluded Iran, not Saddam, gassed the Kurds. See my comment in this post for the text and link.

"If you look for the social economic motive, you will not have to wait for history to tell you what was propaganda and what was truth." - George Seldes

by Real History Lisa (lpeaseRemoveThis@gte.net) on Sat Dec 30th, 2006 at 12:50:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Yeah, I think they want to skip this one (none / 1)

PMS Purchase More Shoes

by Militarytracy on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 03:54:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saddam Hussein to be Executed Soon (none / 1)

I recall reading (can't find where, think it was in the NYT), that the plan under Bremer was to try Saddam again and again and again before allowing him to be executed. Apparently that either has been tossed aside, or (more likely), the U.S. isn't really in a position to make that decision any longer.

The other issue is the reality that with the unrest in the country, Saddam staying alive could hold out the possibility to some of his return to power. I'm not suggesting that is realistic, but merely that our administration may think his death with quiet some of the dissent by his former followers.

by Kidspeak on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 09:45:24 AM EST

Re: Saddam Hussein to be Executed Soon (none / 0)

What I do not understand is, why can they not wait until the current trial is finished. What do they want to hide by hanging Saddam now????

Besides, I do opposed that death sentence - but this outcome was predictable from the very beginning.

Read the European view on European Tribune

by Fran on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 12:12:34 PM EST

Two Signatures Required Before Execution (none / 0)

Judge: Saddam to be executed by Saturday

There have been disagreements among Iraqi officials in recent days as to whether Iraqi law dictates the execution must take place within 30 days and whether President Jalal Talabani and his two deputies have to approve it.

BBC News

GOD'S GIFT TO IRAQI'S
In his Friday sermon, a mosque preacher in the Shiite holy city of Najaf called Saddam's execution "God's gift to Iraqis. Oh, God, you know what Saddam has done! He killed millions of Iraqis in prisons, in wars with neighboring countries and he is responsible for mass graves. Oh God, we ask you to take revenge on Saddam," said Sheik Sadralddin al-Qubanji, a member of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as SCIRI, the dominant party in al-Maliki's coalition.

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

by Oui on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 01:09:44 PM EST

The more things change.... (none / 1)

They're selling postcards of the hanging
They're painting the passports brown
The beauty parlor is filled with sailors
The circus is in town
Here comes the blind commissioner
They've got him in a trance
One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker
The other is in his pants
And the riot squad they're restless
They need somewhere to go
As Lady and I look out tonight
From Desolation Row

Cinderella, she seems so easy
"It takes one to know one," she smiles
And puts her hands in her back pockets
Bette Davis style
And in comes Romeo, he's moaning
"You Belong to Me I Believe"
And someone says," You're in the wrong place, my friend
You better leave"
And the only sound that's left
After the ambulances go
Is Cinderella sweeping up
On Desolation Row

Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortunetelling lady
Has even taken all her things inside
All except for Cain and Abel
And the hunchback of Notre Dame
Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain
And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing
He's getting ready for the show
He's going to the carnival tonight
On Desolation Row

Now Ophelia, she's 'neath the window
For her I feel so afraid
On her twenty-second birthday
She already is an old maid

To her, death is quite romantic
She wears an iron vest
Her profession's her religion
Her sin is her lifelessness
And though her eyes are fixed upon
Noah's great rainbow
She spends her time peeking
Into Desolation Row

Einstein, disguised as Robin Hood
With his memories in a trunk
Passed this way an hour ago
With his friend, a jealous monk
He looked so immaculately frightful
As he bummed a cigarette
Then he went off sniffing drainpipes
And reciting the alphabet
Now you would not think to look at him
But he was famous long ago
For playing the electric violin
On Desolation Row

Dr. Filth, he keeps his world
Inside of a leather cup
But all his sexless patients
They're trying to blow it up
Now his nurse, some local loser
She's in charge of the cyanide hole
And she also keeps the cards that read
"Have Mercy on His Soul"
They all play on penny whistles
You can hear them blow
If you lean your head out far enough
From Desolation Row

Across the street they've nailed the curtains
They're getting ready for the feast
The Phantom of the Opera
A perfect image of a priest
They're spoonfeeding Casanova
To get him to feel more assured
Then they'll kill him with self-confidence
After poisoning him with words

And the Phantom's shouting to skinny girls
"Get Outa Here If You Don't Know
Casanova is just being punished for going
To Desolation Row"

Now at midnight all the agents
And the superhuman crew
Come out and round up everyone
That knows more than they do
Then they bring them to the factory
Where the heart-attack machine
Is strapped across their shoulders
And then the kerosene
Is brought down from the castles
By insurance men who go
Check to see that nobody is escaping
To Desolation Row

Praise be to Nero's Neptune
The Titanic sails at dawn
And everybody's shouting
"Which Side Are You On?"
And Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot
Fighting in the captain's tower
While calypso singers laugh at them
And fishermen hold flowers
Between the windows of the sea
Where lovely mermaids flow
And nobody has to think too much
About Desolation Row

Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the door knob broke)
When you asked how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name
Right now I can't read too good
Don't send me no more letters no
Not unless you mail them
From Desolation Row

Thank you Mr. Zimmerman

by aahpat on Fri Dec 29th, 2006 at 02:25:48 PM EST

Re: The more things change.... (none / 0)

I know that song very well, but I've never sat down and read the lyrics. Dylan was just amazing.

by BooMan on Sat Dec 30th, 2006 at 08:43:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Saddam Hussein to be Executed Soon | 19 comments (19 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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