Great Rumbler

Reports just came across from several Arab news stations that Saddam's execution has been carried out.

__________________
My name is Great Rumbler and I'm from the Sub-Human Tractor Planet! ZOOP!!

Read my web log.

EdenMaster

__________________
The Return of the Earthworker Race!
Now 20% More Annoying!!

Dark Jaguar

While it's unfortunate it came to this, at least it's over.

__________________
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

etoven

Apparently FOX News was the only station to cover
the hanging, video below....

__________________
"I once dreamt that I played "cannon in D", on an electric guitar, like a fiddle, in the style of a ho down." ~ me

"You are god to us dream characters. Some of us love you and some of us hate you, and some dream characters want to be left alone." Then he paused and he said "When you are awake, you are a dream character to God. You and everyone else are what God sees when he sleeps." ~ XGM

VILLAGE OF CLONES - Latest Film
(Watch Episode Today!) - (Visit Channel)

Latest Deivant Artwork
Broken Matrimony by ~etoven on deviantART

etoven

TovenNet Information Search Link:
[Here]

__________________
"I once dreamt that I played "cannon in D", on an electric guitar, like a fiddle, in the style of a ho down." ~ me

"You are god to us dream characters. Some of us love you and some of us hate you, and some dream characters want to be left alone." Then he paused and he said "When you are awake, you are a dream character to God. You and everyone else are what God sees when he sleeps." ~ XGM

VILLAGE OF CLONES - Latest Film
(Watch Episode Today!) - (Visit Channel)

Latest Deivant Artwork
Broken Matrimony by ~etoven on deviantART

Dark Jaguar

I can't watch that. That's in poor taste...

__________________
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

Great Rumbler

It doesn't actually show him being hanged [hung?]. They lead him to the gallow and put the noose around his neck, then the video ends and they go back to the live shot from the studio.

__________________
My name is Great Rumbler and I'm from the Sub-Human Tractor Planet! ZOOP!!

Read my web log.

etoven

Did you realy think they would show a guy being hung on MSNBC?
Or I would post it on a public forum??

Why do you have so much sympathy for Saddam?
The guy was an out of his gord religious fanatic megalomaniac who has been estimated to have butchered over a million people.

I'd hang my own mother if she had committed the same atrocities as him.

Now, the commercial edited into the video for a product that makes your skateboard spark on the pavement. That's in poor taste.

__________________
"I once dreamt that I played "cannon in D", on an electric guitar, like a fiddle, in the style of a ho down." ~ me

"You are god to us dream characters. Some of us love you and some of us hate you, and some dream characters want to be left alone." Then he paused and he said "When you are awake, you are a dream character to God. You and everyone else are what God sees when he sleeps." ~ XGM

VILLAGE OF CLONES - Latest Film
(Watch Episode Today!) - (Visit Channel)

Latest Deivant Artwork
Broken Matrimony by ~etoven on deviantART

Fittisize

I'd much rather see him spend the rest of his days in a jail cell than to have him murdered. I mean executed. I'm not sure which sounds worse. But the mere mention of that sparks an extremely inane debate over the death penalty which always goes nowhere.

I'll make it quick: IT'S WRONG.

Ryan

Wish they'd carry out executions that quickly here.

__________________

Fittisize

Yeah, I will give credit to the Iraqi government for that. Those fuckers are quick and efficient, even if it is for something I don't believe in.

DMiller

What is so good about executing someone quickly? Yes, in a case such as this it is obvious Sadaam was guilty, but there are way too many cases in the US where someone on death row turns out to be innocent.

__________________
My Games (GameSpot)
My Website (In A Constant State of Construction)

Ryan

And there are countless cases when the guilty escape punishment.

The system isn't perfect, and will never be, but it can and should be more efficient.

__________________

Dark Jaguar

It has nothing to do with sympathy really, just empathy for people in general. I'm not saying I feel sorry for the guy really. What I'm saying is that it's a shame anyway, and that's also reverse to the fact that instead of Saddam the evil ruler, we could be talking about Saddam the peacebringer, the uniter of the middle-east, if you know, he led a completely different life.

What I'm saying is I can't delight in anyone's death. Shame it all came to this, that's all I'm saying.

__________________
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

Dark Lord Neo

Bush is responsible for more deaths

*ducks and covers*

__________________
"La raison avant la passion."
-P.E.Trudeau

Ryan

You can see the unedited video of his execution on YouTube now.

Please note, this is being offered for the curious, and I didn't directly post the video for a reason. If you think it's in bad taste, then don't click the link.

__________________

Fittisize

The worst part for me about visiting that link was not seeing the hanging, but reading the user comments.
The Juice seems a tad out of place next to names like Hitler and bin Laden.
Here too...

A Black Falcon

Capital punishment is always wrong, so I was not happy to see this (happen, I mean; I didn't watch the video, though I saw a picture from it in the paper)... while it is true that he did innumerable horrible things, that doesn't make it right to kill him. Jail for life? Sure. But execution... it's just not right. Even for someone like Saddaam.

(oh, and as for the political ramifications, this will do nothing but make the insurgency worse, given that a significant part of the cause of the insurgency is the fact that the Sunnis don't want to lose the power they held while Saddaam was in control... this will just make things worse. It's obvious that he was railroaded to execution by the vindictive Shi'ite government (as that video makes blindingly clear), and we are already seeing the results... even more angry Sunnis. Yes, things in Iraq CAN get worse...)

__________________
My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

Ryan

What's not right is to leave him alive so he can further burden his people.

However, in Iraq, life imprisonment probably is really horrible. I'm against it in America because inmates don't suffer nearly enough while living on my tax money.

__________________

Dark Jaguar

Well the idea is just to keep them away from us right? Why does "suffering" need to factor into this? Keep in mind that this is not some new age thing. People have been discussing horrid jail conditions for centuries as a negative. The only reason we went on to the electric chair is because at the time, hanging was the most used method of execution and the public was starting to see that as barbaric. The moral zeitgeist moves on.

__________________
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

DorkKing

Waisnt the guillotine more swift then the noose ? I guess more messy..

Saddams hanging though isnt caparable to what his victims experienced , It was pretty taime for the middle east and even the U.S, Gas chambre? Electric chair mishaps lit a death row inmate on fire in 1994 in florida the stench of burning flesh was said to have filled the room

In Iran they do this. " You get a nice view before you sufocate"

EdenMaster

Hanging, if done right, can be just as effective and quick as a guillotine. Hanging as a form of execution isn't about asphyxiation, but about using gravity and ones own weight to break the neck. In fact, making the person fall too far before hitting the end of the rope can, and has, caused decapitation.

The guillotine and the gallows have much in common, no?

__________________
The Return of the Earthworker Race!
Now 20% More Annoying!!

Ryan

By 'suffer' I don't mean they should be left exposed or hanging from chains. What I mean is that they should lack all luxuries and amenities. No TV, no reading material, no art supplies, no recreation of any sort except what a prisoner can devise within his cell... which he should never be allowed to exit save for searches and cleanings. There should be nothing pleasurable about the experience.

I still hate the idea of life imprisonment because it burdens taxpayers unfairly. I hate the idea of having my money being used to provide room, board, food and medical attention for someone who rapes or murders. It's waste. Convict them and end them as quickly and cleanly as possible.

__________________

Fittisize

On the other hand, I wouldn't like the idea of my taxes being put forward to murder a human being. Fortunately, they don't. And I'm pretty sure that prison is a lot worse than you think, Ryan.

EdenMaster

Prison's definitely no pleasure cruise, but it's far from the bleak, dank hell-hole these people deserve. They get television, books, activites, schooling, and other amenities that criminals should not have access to, nor should we, the law-abiding citizens, have to pay for.

I understand the notion that killing is wrong, really I do. It is wrong...usually. Think of it this way, say a murdered killed somone close to you, a family member or a good friend. How would you prefer that person be dealt with after they catch him? I know I'd rather see him burn. Now imagine Saddam Hussein and how many people he tortured and killed (or worse). His execution was not wrong, it was justice.

__________________
The Return of the Earthworker Race!
Now 20% More Annoying!!

DMiller

I'd would actually rather see someone who hurt my family spent the rest of their life in a situation similar to what Ryan said. That's more suffering than a quick and painless death.

__________________
My Games (GameSpot)
My Website (In A Constant State of Construction)

EdenMaster

That's the point, prison isn't like Ryan said. "Cruel and unusual punishment", and all that rot.

__________________
The Return of the Earthworker Race!
Now 20% More Annoying!!

A Black Falcon

Just because it's natural to want to hurt/make suffer someone who did something that hurt people doesn't mean that it's right...

__________________
My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

EdenMaster

Lemme cut out the extraneous words and leave with the basic sentiment of your post:

What?

__________________
The Return of the Earthworker Race!
Now 20% More Annoying!!

A Black Falcon

It's natural to want people who did things you find reprehensible to suffer, but that doesn't make it moral to actually do that to that person (either yourself or through the justice system). Just because Sadaam was a cruel man who unhesitatingly had large numbers of people killed doesn't mean that it's any more right to kill him than it was for him to kill his victims. People often lose sight of the line between wishing something to be for their own benefit and what is actually right...

We have minds. Instincts are what is natural, but not always what is right.

__________________
My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

EdenMaster

...

WHAT?? If anyone deserved to pay the ultimate price, it was him.

__________________
The Return of the Earthworker Race!
Now 20% More Annoying!!

Great Rumbler

Uh-oh! ABF's pulling out the morality card!

__________________
My name is Great Rumbler and I'm from the Sub-Human Tractor Planet! ZOOP!!

Read my web log.

A Black Falcon

Being opposed to the death penalty means being opposed to the death penalty. Making exceptions just because of the scale of the crimes makes your entire position meaningless... so no, I definitely do not believe Sadaam should have been executed.

Capital punishment is a major societal, and moral, issue, so how could you not?

__________________
My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

Ryan

I thought morals were relative and subject to individual interpretation?

__________________

A Black Falcon

And I was stating my opinion on the matter.

__________________
My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

etoven

Hussein butchered millions of people, not hundreds, not thousands, right up there with Hitler. He hung their bodies in the streets, bloodies and desecrated for their family-es to see. He would not hesitate to inflect capital punishments on you, it would delight him to no end. Here's a man who would ejaculate at the very notion of doing cruel and inhuman things to you, your mother, your father, your brother, and your sister. Showing mercy to him is a pointless act for he has none himself. He is the devil, the personification of all evil, who kills sacrilegiously in the name of Jesus. He, will burn in hell for his crimes, and the entire Iraqi nation is thrilled to death that he hung by the neck until he was dead.

His death was quick and painless for the most part which was way more then he deserved. In a culture as advanced as the noose around his neck he was lucky to get off so easy.

Point made.

__________________
"I once dreamt that I played "cannon in D", on an electric guitar, like a fiddle, in the style of a ho down." ~ me

"You are god to us dream characters. Some of us love you and some of us hate you, and some dream characters want to be left alone." Then he paused and he said "When you are awake, you are a dream character to God. You and everyone else are what God sees when he sleeps." ~ XGM

VILLAGE OF CLONES - Latest Film
(Watch Episode Today!) - (Visit Channel)

Latest Deivant Artwork
Broken Matrimony by ~etoven on deviantART

A Black Falcon

Life is the most precious thing that we have, and it is not right for us to deny it of others, whether or not they believe the same. Saddaam clearly does not believe that, but that makes it no less wrong for us to kill him; indeed, it makes the ones killing him wrong too.

I will ignore most of your ranting, but one thing stands out for its ignorance... the idea that Saddaam is "Right up there with Hitler." That statement is quite simply completely wrong in every possible way. Hitler and Stalin are on an order completely different from any other figures of the 20th Century and, because of technology, probably on a different order from anyone else who has ever lived. Saddaam caused many deaths and did terrible things, but comparing him to Hitler is just ridiculous right-wing propaganda. Hitler started a war that killed millions and ordered the eradication of 12 million people (completing half of that task) as well as the deaths of millions of others who opposed him or belonged to the wrong racial group or classification (gay men, Gypsies, Slavs, political dissidents, etc)... Saddaam? He did start a war (the Iran-Iraq war) and was extremely brutal in his methods, but he did not try to exterminate the entirety of the minority populations; he only wanted to kill some of them to make the other ones stop resisting him (an evil thing to be sure, but nothing compared to Hitler...). Stalin was as evil as Hitler. People like Saddaam, Pol Pot, or others like them only are in the eyes of their most deluded opponents... "Bush is the worst president in American history" would be much closer to the truth than "Saddaam is equal to Hitler". (whether he is or not is debatable, since so much of politics is about the issues of the day and understaning how good a president was requires understanding the major issues of his time and how well he dealt with him, but he's certainly pretty high on the list...)

Saddaam should actually be compared to other brutal dictators, many of which the US fully supports -- for instance, Musharaf in Pakistan, or the Chinese government (who execute more people than any other government; the actual number isn't quite known because it is not publicized)... and we supported Saddaam in his worst years, remember, all the way from the Iran-Iraq war and its 1.7 million total casualties (a good thing for us because it distracted the new evil, Iran and its religious government) to Saddaam's crushing of the 1991 revolts after the Gulf War (Pres. Bush 1's people were so helpful that they even allowed Saddaam to fly his helicopters in the no-fly zone, greatly helping them in their revolt suppression operations!)... we have absolutely no moral ground to stand on on this issue. None. It is US policy to support evil dictators if we think that they will oppose those groups we hate even more -- the Communists, Al-Quaida, whatever. Of course we turned on Saddaam eventually, and had him killed (turning him over to Iraqi "justice" was tantamount to a quick death sentence), for various reasons (oil, revenge, etc.), but that doesn't change what we did in the years before that...

Absolutely, completley, and utterly untrue. This is exactly why we MUST uphold justice. He deserves the same justice as all other humans do... morality and law may be human constructs, but they exist because without them human society cannot function, and in order to maintain a functional and just society we must uphold those moral codes. Executing people, the most final and brutal aspect of justice, goes directly against any concept of justice that includes any humanistic aspect (such as the Declaration of Independance -- "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" -- maybe it is just a construct in thought to say that people are born with inalienable rights, but even so that is an amazing idea that, if it were upheld, would make for a much better society... giving all the chance to succeed and be free in life, and punishing them appropriately when they do wrong. Ideas of what are moral change with time, and gradually over the centuries the idea of death of a penalty has gotten harder and harder to morally justify. As I said, it is not right to kill someone simply because they have killed. A good society would, in this situation, uphold their values despite the existance of this person ignoring them and sentence the person to a prison term, hoping that they can either be truly rehabilitated or kept away from society permanantly. Europe understands this, which is why the death penalty is illegal in the European Union (and they give far fewer life-without-parole sentences too; while that is an appropriate punishment for some crimes, the US perhaps hands out such sentences too often...).

The other aspect of the death penalty argument apply here only in part. While it is clear that Saddaam was guilty, the trial still was not fair or free. The defence was weak, the proceedings rigged, and the result predetermined; some may say that a truly fair, indepentant trial, like the one Slobodan Milosevich recieved, is not something such leaders deserve (and Milosevich did a good job of delaying that trial over and over for years until he finally died before it ended), they truly do. The world should get a true account of the events of that leader's rule and all of the things they did that go against international law... Saddaam most certainly did not get that. He was killed because Bush wanted him dead and he was Sunni and the government of Iraq is Shi'ite, and that is the end of that as far as legality was concerned.

(For most any other death penalty case, the issue of whether the defendant is actually guilty is a central issue, and one that has caused some US states to suspend the death penalty -- the innocent can and sometimes are killed in places the death penalty is allowed, and this is the ultimate miscarraige in justice...)

Actually, the Sunni portion would mostly be happier if he was still in power, for they would still be in control of Iraq... remember, most of Saddaam's victims were Shi'ite and Kurd, not Sunni. While Sunnis were killed too for civil crimes, and Saddaam's regime was notorious for abuses there, all of the nations of the Middle East are horrible on this issue (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran have some of the least fair and most brutal "justice" systems in the world...), and they had the power, so they would rather suffer his occasional tyrannical act than lose all of their power and authority. The Sunni inability to accept their loss of power is one of the main things fueling the insurgency (as Shi'ite desires to get back at the Sunnis for years of mistreatment fuel the other half of it)...

__________________
My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff

etoven

I cant believe what I'm hearing....
Saddam started a war that ordered the eradication of millions of people (completing nearly all of the task) as well as the deaths of those who opposed him and belonged to the wrong religious group.

It's the same thing!

(1) You just contradicted your self, you said most of Saddam's victims were Shi'ite and Kurd no Sunni. Then you go on to say Saddam's regime was notorious for their for abusing Sunni.

(2) Everyone there is killing and maiming in the name of Mohammad so that makes it right?

(3) So it's better they be powerful tyrants than live under the rule of one? I think that's the greater of 2 evils.

Saddam's sentence was cared out quick and painlessly according to the traditions of his own people, using the justice system best available to the technology and society level of the people (a hanging).

__________________
"I once dreamt that I played "cannon in D", on an electric guitar, like a fiddle, in the style of a ho down." ~ me

"You are god to us dream characters. Some of us love you and some of us hate you, and some dream characters want to be left alone." Then he paused and he said "When you are awake, you are a dream character to God. You and everyone else are what God sees when he sleeps." ~ XGM

VILLAGE OF CLONES - Latest Film
(Watch Episode Today!) - (Visit Channel)

Latest Deivant Artwork
Broken Matrimony by ~etoven on deviantART

A Black Falcon

You didn't read, or remember your history, correctly. Saddaam was trying to oppress and crush the revolts of the Kurds and Sunnis, but did not try to wipe them out on a large scale. Hitler's entire goal was the complete destruction of whole peoples. Even pretending that they have any similarities (beyond being violent dictators) is completely ridiculous. Seriously... the number of deaths that can be blamed on Hitler is so many orders of magnitude higher than the number that can be blamed on Saddaam that your argument completely falls apart upon examination.

And that's not even getting into the methods -- that is, how the hallmark of German brutality was a very efficient, highly centralized system of camps and records, while Iraq's... was pretty much the exact opposite of that, to say the least...

No, they were well known for abusing everyone, not just the Sunnis in specific.

Even so, with all of Saddaam's horrible actions, as I said, when you compare even Saddaam's Iraq to its neighbors, it suddenly doesn't look quite so bad... or more accurately, it doesn't look much if any worse than they are... (like virtually every country on the planet better than Saudi Arabia on women's rights, while being worse on random violence and oppression of minorities; compared to Iran, better on religion (Saddaam being a secular, and not a religious, ruler, Iraq was not governed by Sharia law until the Shi'ites took power after we deposed Iran -- a very good thing in many ways, as you'd know if you know much about Sharia... of course instead we had Saddaam's despotism, but still, for the Sunnis who were not being targetted by the government for whatever reason, things were better than they are now.), etc...

Really, saying "Saddaam is gone! Yay" is one thing, but thinking about what to do next... well, the people in charge now want Sharia and all of its oppression enforced. This is a very bad thing. Was Saddaam better? Well, not Saddaam at the height of his cruelty, but late '90s/early 2000's Saddaam, surrounded by US troops and forced to somewhat cooperate? That one was much less dangerous on the whole... still a threat to his own people, of course, but not on the scale of earlier.

It makes the causes of the killing understandable; of course it does not make them right.

What do you mean here?

We were the ones who handed him over to them, knowing what would happen next. That makes us the most responsible ones for this... and as for the "traditions of his people", his greatest crimes were not ones for a national court but for an international one, as I said. I know that this administration would NEVER, EVER do that, because they hate the idea of working with other nations or following international law (a truth typified with the fact that the US invasion of Iraq Bush led flagrantly broke international law), but it would have been a far better option.

Of course the ACTUAL good option would have been to stay out and let the weapons inspectors finish their inspections, conclude that Saddaam had nothing, and show before we went in and started this whole thing that the main excuse for going to war wasn't true, but Bush wanted an invasion, not an exposition of the facts, so he didn't do that. Wait and they might decide against you, after all, and we can't have that... vengeance (for his father not taking out Saddaam in 1991), Big Oil (economic interests are almost always incredibly powerful in pushing wars...), and the desire for something to bump up the Republicans in the next election (and maybe more reasons, but those are the main ones) mattered far more. But we didn't, and now we're there, and we're suffering for it...

I do believe that since we started the civil war in Iraq (by having no plan for what to do once we destroyed the government and not realizing somehow that allowing people who hate eachother free rein to go at eachother would go horribly badly) we have a responsibility to find a way to end it, but Bush doesn't care about that, and Congress doesn't either, so I don't know if that's ever going to happen... it's either an impossible "Victory" or leaving and letting the Iraqis kill themselves without US troops in the way pushing it to the front page of the papers every day so that we can forget about it and pretend that it's over... (though, because we don't seem to have any actual good, viable options to end it right now, that might actually be the best choice... ... I do think that the "Split Iraq up three ways and find a way to get them to fairly divide the oil revenues" is the best solution, though. I don't see how anything less could end this...)

__________________
My Games Collection My Webpage!
Currently Playing: Guild Wars (with expansions) (PC), Donkey Kong Country series (SNES), Summon Night: Swordcraft Story 1 and 2 (GBA), sometimes Warcraft III or Starcraft (PC) Mega Turrican and Universal Soldier (Genesis), various other stuff