Saddam has escaped!

Still, he is no longer in U.S. custody.

so...... ?

So, do we get a new Saddam in Hell South Park episode now that he's actually dead?

Oh, great. I'll make popcorn.

BRANFLAKES U IDIOT

it's as if he's saying, "well, ain't THAT a bitch!!"

President Bush said Friday that Saddam Hussein's execution marks the "end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops" and cautioned that his death will not halt the violence in Iraq.

Yet, Bush said in a statement issued from his ranch in Texas, "it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror."

In a message of assurance to the people of Iraq, Bush said the execution was a reminder of how far the Iraqi people have come since the end of Saddam's rule.

"The progress they have made would not have been possible without the continued service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform," he said.

Bush, who has spent weeks crafting a new U.S. policy in Iraq, warned of more challenges for U.S. troops.

"Many difficult choices and further sacrifices lie ahead," he said. "Yet the safety and security of the American people require that we not relent in ensuring that Iraq's young democracy continues to progress."

When Saddam was apprehended in 2003, Bush promised that the deposed Iraqi leader would "face the justice he denied to millions." The administration blamed Saddam for hundreds of thousands of mass executions.

In November, Saddam was sentenced to death after being convicted of murder in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from an Iraqi town where assassins tried to kill him in 1982.

After three decades in power, Saddam was captured in December 2003 in an underground hideout on a farm near his hometown of Tikrit. Two days later, Bush remarked: "Good riddance. The world is better off without you, Mr. Saddam Hussein."

The president was briefed at 6:15 p.m. CST by National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley about the execution procedure, and that it would go forward in the next few hours. Hadley had been in touch with U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, who had been in contact with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

Bush was asleep when the execution occurred.

"The president concluded his day knowing that the final phase of bringing Saddam Hussein to justice was under way," deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel said.

As his execution drew near, Saddam's lawyers filed an appeal trying to stave it off.

However, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who heard arguments from attorneys by phone, rejected the challenge Friday night. She said U.S. courts do not have jurisdiction to interfere in another country's judicial process.

In the 21-page request filed Friday, Saddam's attorneys argued that because Saddam also faces a civil lawsuit in Washington, he has rights as a civil defendant that would be violated if he is executed. He has not received notice of those rights and the consequences that the lawsuit would have on his estate, his attorneys said.

"To protect those rights, defendant Saddam Hussein requests an order of this court providing a stay of his execution until further notice of this court," attorney Nicholas Gilman wrote.

In Iraq, U.S. forces were ready for any escalation of violence associated with the execution, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said several hours before Saddam was hanged.

Closer to home, Americans were warned by the FBI and the Homeland Security Department to be vigilant about the possibility of a terror attack. The advisory sent to local law enforcement did not cite a specific threat.

American sentiment about the war has changed dramatically since 2003, when jubilant crowds toppled a 40-foot statue of the dictator and a deshelved Saddam, in U.S. custody, was seen on television being examined by a doctor who probed his mouth with a tongue depressor.

Then, Saddam's capture helped Bush's political stature following months of rising casualties and growing doubts about his handling of Iraq. The months-long manhunt for Saddam had damaged U.S. prestige and claims of progress in Iraq.

Now, unrelenting violence and a U.S. death toll nearing 3,000 has sent Bush's approval ratings on the war plumeting to their lowest levels.

Seventy-one percent disapprove of his management of the war; almost two-thirds doubt that a stable, democratic government will ever be established in Iraq, according to early December AP-Ipsos polling.

Bush called the execution a historical moment in Iraq's road to democracy.

"Saddam Hussein's execution comes at the end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops," he saad. "Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror."

Among the U.S. lawmakers responding to word of Saddam's execution, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., the incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he hoped the families of Saddam's victims could now begin "the healing process."

"Iraq has closed one of the darkest chapters in its history and rid the world of a tyrant," Biden said in a statement. "Every effort was made to afford Saddam the judicial rights he denied to the 148 innocent victims of Dujail and to hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis during his brutal reign."

The Republican leader-elect of the Senate, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said Saddam had finally met justice.

"Today the world was rid of a brutal dictator," McConnell said. "The free people of Iraq must now go forward together to build a unified nation, and leave behind sectarian divisions."

Associated Press writers Lolita C. Baldor, Barry Schweid and Matt Apuzzo in Washington contributed to this story.

If Pynchon used that as a character name, nobody would blink.

Bush was asleep when the execution occurred.
Bush was asleep when the execution occurred.
Bush was asleep when the execution occurred.
Bush was asleep when the execution occurred.

Should be his epitaph.

http://www.foxnews.com/images/root_images/saddam_hanged_600.jpg

The animated corpse of Iraqi Dictator Saddam Hussein has been reported active in northern Baghdad. This confirms earlier suspicion Saddam had successfully used the Book of Mass Destruction known as the Necronomicon

It is still unknown the exact extent of the Book's effect. Rumors that Saddam's Inner Circle have also been converted to Undead have not been verified. There also remains the question, was the spell to summon Yog Sothoth successful? Special Forces continue to look for signs of eldritch activity in the city.

http://www.cafe-de-fleur.com/images/saddamundead.jpg

"And they was RIGHT!"

France24, Farm policy and a article on Lemur conservation

Me too. I found the clip of a noose being put around his neck so... weird.

Ok, there was already a dude on Coast to Coast AM tonight saying they hung an imposter. The Russians pulled a switcheroo, apparently.

It's the spare room.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6218485.stm

just in case: Don't try this at home, kids.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=8EWuHviB09E

"well its been real. don't worry, its just like going to sleep i hear."

-- Dr M (wjwe...), December 30th, 2006. (Dr Morbius) (later) (link)

thank you

Oh, snap!

Hallo, listen to W, it's cuz nice executions = DEMOCRACY

Despite my opp to the death penalty, I can see this being within moral bounds as that laughable "government" is going to collapse when we leave, be it in 5 months or 5 years, and the Hussein clan could esily be restored. Instead we'll get a new bloody goon.

My other worry is that he was only convicted of crimes against Shias while alive; some Kurd-related and Sunni-related convictions might have helped to bypass this. Perhaps time was of the essence though, because under Iraqi law nobody over 70 can be executed at all. Saddam would have been 70 in April.

what a waste of a despot. executed (oh very nicely, we hear) for murdering 148 shiites. meanwhile, the hundreds of thousands (maybe even millions if you add in his international work) of other victims have to be content with more convictions piling up on his "estate". keeping him penned up in one trial after another seemed like the most moral thing to do with him, imo. and maybe its wishful thinking, but allowing every victimized group (even some sunni!) their chance to get their knife in him before he went might have provided some small glimmer of unity and reconciliation. now it looks like just another sectarian killing. but what do i know.

The best thing about the trials was watching his total cognitive dissonance about not being in charge, the delusional fangless idiot who looked like one of the guys in the Bumfight video.

Morbs, as my mom just said in response to that info nugget, "there's ALWAYS irony." All this US interfering with the affairs of other nations makes me wonder if the body of James Monroe is spinning fast enough in grave to create cold fusion yet.

I'm just being honest here, but I'm curiously unmoved by the whole thing. I think he absolutely deserved to die, many times over. Though, I'm with Andy when it comes to the media coverage. I find it entirely un-compelling. I should also add that I think the arguments against killing him so soon were fairly persuasive on a lot of points: The trial was a bit of a joke, there are greater crimes he should have been held accountable for, etc. But, if as some voices suggest, this will bring closure or close a book on the past or any of the other cliches swirling around, maybe it was better that he be killed quickly

???

-- daniel seward (bunnybrai...), December 30th, 2006 8:47 PM. (bunnybrain)

OH SHI-

humanity cannot move forward until this is "rock n roll heaven"-ized

OH SHI-

I didn't watch it to the end. DId you actually see him falling down?

Washington

MY personal battle with Saddam Hussein — which began in 1972 when I abandoned my medical career in Mosul, Iraq, and joined the Kurdish armed resistance — is at an end. To execute such a criminal, a man who reveled in his atrocities, is an act of justice.

The only issue for me is the timing — executing him now is both too late and too early. Too late, because had Saddam Hussein been removed from the scene many years ago, many lives would have been saved.

Killing Saddam now, however, for ordering the massacre at Dujail in 1982, means that he will not face justice for his greatest crimes: the so-called Anfal campaign against the Kurds in the late 1980s, the genocidal assault on the Marsh Arabs in the 1990s, and the slaughtering of the Shiite Arabs and Kurds who rose up against him, with American encouragement, in 1991.

The sight of a tyrant held to account, if only briefly, has been an important precedent for the Middle East. The shabby diplomacy that has allowed dictators to thrive is now discredited.

Sadly, however, we have not had full justice. Saddam Hussein did not confront the full horror of his crimes. Building on previous initiatives by Arab nationalist governments to persecute the Kurds, he turned ethnic engineering and murder into an industry in the 1970s. Hundreds of thousands were evicted from their homes and murdered. Swaths of Kurdish countryside were emptied of their population, men, women and children taken to shallow graves and shot.

Initially, the United States backed those of us who took to the hills to save our lives and freedom, but in 1975 (and here is an irony) Gerald Ford agreed to stop financing us in order to settle a border dispute between Iraq and Iran. As so many times since, human rights were no match for a desire to keep the oil flowing.

During the 1980s, entire towns, including Qala Diza in Iraqi Kurdistan and Qasr-i-Shirin in neighboring Iranian Kurdistan, were destroyed. To ensure that survivors would never return to their homes, the mountains were laced with land mines. The widows and children were detained in settlements lacking fresh water and sewage disposal; these were called “mujammat” in Arabic, which translates, with all the dreadful implications, as “concentration areas.”

While I escaped to America, my family was not so lucky. My brother-in-law and nephew were summarily executed. They never had anything remotely approaching a fair trial, never got to write a will, never got to say goodbye to my sister.

Saddam Hussein’s trial shed new light on these tragic years. Documents came to light revealing that his regime coordinated with Turkey in its efforts to isolate Kurdish villages in 1988, in which he used chemical weapons. This should lead to some important soul searching in Turkey.

But the failure to put Saddam Hussein on trial for the Anfal offensive itself will cheat us of learning the full details — of investigating whether the Turks suppressed evidence of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons by preventing foreign doctors from seeing Kurdish refugees; of knowing the extent to which Saudi Arabia and Egypt may have aided Saddam Hussein’s weapons production.

Kurds aren’t the only ones who will be cheated out of full reckoning. In 1991, as we all know, the retreating Iraqi army massacred Shiite Arabs as well as Kurds who had heeded President George H. W. Bush’s call to overthrow the Baathist regime. According to the 2004 report of the Iraq Survey Group, the dictator used chemical weapons against Shiite Arab civilians in 1991. Without putting Saddam Hussein on trial for these offenses, or for his campaigns against the Marsh Arabs of the south, will we ever know what really happened?

For all the mistakes that the United States has made in Iraq — and I feel the betrayal of 1975 was the worst — I am a proud (naturalized) American because this country brought the murderous despot to trial. Still, it is a great shame that he will not be held accountable for all of his crimes, and a far greater tragedy that he was allowed, sometimes with American complicity, to commit them in the first place.

Najmaldin Karim, a neurosurgeon, is the president of the Washington Kurdish Institute.

This is sort of how I feel. He should have been tried for a lot more. I had thought they were about to start another trial. I wonder if they got wind of some rescue attempt or something.

If I thought that it was truly an Iraqi authority that sent him to the gallows, I would still be morally opposed, but think it was fair enough. As it stands, the rushed death sentence is pretty disgusting. I heard the trial was getting to a point that could reveal potentially embarassing stuff about the US's propping-up of his regime in the early days, but that was only off some bloke in the pub so its veracity is dubious.

no

-- Charos (abc...), December 31st, 2006. (later)

it's probably helpful that, if we're "spreading democracy and the rule of law," we actually practice it, mr. north.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7532034279766935521

-- Elvis Telecom (quartzcit...), December 30th, 2006. (Chris Barrus) (later)

t minus four days (they'll probably wait until after the ford holiday)

That should be enough.

There....

Saturday, December 30, 2006
If Ever You Needed Proof of American Leftist Insanity- Look Now!

There is an enemy in America- Powerful -Shrill- Self-Hating - It has never been more obvious, it has never been more open... than it is today- mourning Saddam!

It is not a fringe element.
It is not a minority.
It is the voice of today's American Left.

The evil mass-murdering Saddam Hussein was hung today and the American left mourns... Their America-hating sickness has never been more glaring.

Who is this "we" that are you are talking about? I was under the impression that it was the Iraqis who decided that they wanted to kill him. They have a choice if they want to follow the rule of law as we know it...or not.

I saw a bit of the other film (which excluded the hanging itself) and I was not only shivering, I also somehow felt... "Is that it?" I figured something as important would be more... impressive but (of course) it isn't. Because I'm vehemently opposed ot death penalty - even in this case - I refuse to watch it.

Why watch it? It's history and you want to see it. I guess. Still I don't want to see it.

-- Marmot (marmotwolo...) (webmail), December 30th, 2006 6:59 PM. (marmotwolof) (later) (link

No idea if it was intentional, but this is killing me.

This is the only news source I'll be listening to for a longity long time. As per.

For the purposes of tonight and my own personal enjoyment, I'm going to yield to the notion that I deserve this.

And in the spirit of that, tell you that I am very honored to receive it. And for this I thank the Creative Coalition and my friend Charlie Rose. It does seem appropriate to take this opportunity to exercise the right that honors us all - freedom of speech.

The original title for the Louis XVI comedy called "Start The Revolution Without Me" was one of my favorites. That original title was "Louis, There's a Crowd Downstairs." But I'll come back to that...

Words may be our most civil weapons of change, when they connect to actions of sacrifice, or good will, but they have no grace or power without bold clarity. So, if you'll bear with me, borrowing a line from Bob Dylan, "Let us not talk falsely now - the hour is getting late."

Global warming, Massive pollution, Non-stop U.S. war in Iraq, Attacks on civil liberties under the banner of war on terror, Military spending...

You and I, U.S. taxpayers, spend US$1.5 billion on an Iraq-war-'focused' military everyday, while social needs cry out.

Health care, Education, Public transit, Environmental protections, Affordable housing, Job training, Public investment, And, levee building.

And should we speak truth, we stand
against government efforts to
intimidate or legislate in the service
of censorship. Whether under the
guise of a Patriot Act or any other
benevolent-sounding rationale
for the age-old game of shutting down
dissent by discouraging independent
thinking and preventing
progressive social change.

We depend largely for information on these issues from media industries, driven by the bottom line to such an extent that the public interest becomes uninteresting.

And should we speak truth, we stand against government efforts to intimidate or legislate in the service of censorship. Whether under the guise of a Patriot Act or any other benevolent-sounding rationale for the age-old game of shutting down dissent by discouraging independent thinking and preventing progressive social change.

The most effective forms of de facto censorship are pre-emptive. Systemically, we are encouraged to keep our heads down, out of the line of fire - to avoid the danger, god forbid, that someone in the White House, on Capitol Hill, or a media blow-hard might take a shot at us.

But, as a practical matter, most of the limits on creative expression and other forms of free speech come from self-censorship, where the mechanism of corporate clout offers carrots and brandishes sticks. We avoid a conflict before the conflict materializes. We reach for the carrots and stay out of range of sticks.

Decades ago, Fred Friendly called it a "positive veto" - corporations putting big money behind shows that they want to establish and perpetuate. Whether in journalism or drama, creative efforts that don't gain a financial "positive veto" are dismissible, then dismissed. We may not call that "censorship." But whatever we call it, the effects of a "positive veto" system are severe. They impose practical limits on efforts to bring the most important realities to public attention sooner rather than later...

We're beginning to see more revealing images of this war. But it's later now, isn't it? What we have to pay attention to are the results of these "practical limits." One, is that wars become much easier to launch than to halt.

I've got a feeling about how we can begin to change this process and I want to pass it by you. Children grow up in our country - many by the way, under conditions of extreme poverty - and are told from a very early age "You will be accountable!" "With freedom, comes responsibility!" And so the lecture goes... Democratic and Republican alike. Lie-cheat-steal, and there will be consequences! Theft will be punished. Actions that cause the deaths of others will be severely punished. The message, from leaders in Washington, news media, mom, dad, and church is clear. Criminals MUST be held accountable.

Now, there's been a lot of talk lately on Capitol Hill about how impeachment should be "off the table." We're told that it's time to look ahead - not back...

But, as a practical matter, most of the
limits on creative expression and
other forms of free speech come
from self-censorship, where the
mechanism of corporate clout
offers carrots and brandishes sticks.
We avoid a conflict before the
conflict materializes. We reach for
the carrots and stay out of
range of sticks.

Can you imagine how far that argument would go for the defense at an arraignment on charges of grand larceny, or large-scale distribution of methamphetamines? How about the arranging of a contract killing on a pregnant mother? "Indictment should be off the table." Or "Let's look forward, not backward." Or "We can't afford another failed defendant."

Our country has a legal system, not of men and women, but of laws. Why then are we so willing to put inconvenient provisions of the U.S. constitution and federal law "off the table?" Our greatest concern right now should be what to put ON the table. Unless we're going to have one set of laws for the powerful and another set for those who can't afford fancy lawyers, then truth matters to everyone. And accountability is a matter of human and legal principle.

If we're going to continue wagging our fingers at the disadvantaged transgressors, then I suggest we be consistent. If truth and accountability can be stretched into sham concepts, we may as well open the gates of all our jails and prisons, where, by the way, there are more people behind bars than any other country in the world. One in every 32 American adults is behind bars, on probation, or on parole as we stand here tonight.

Which is to say that, globally, the United States is number one at demanding accountability and backing up that demand with imprisonment. But, when it comes to our president, vice president, secretary of state, former secretary of defense... this insistence on accountability vanishes. All of a sudden, what's past is prologue. And we're just "forward-looking."

But some people can't just look forward. Men and women stationed in Iraq at this moment, under orders of a Commander-in-Chief so sufficiently practiced in the art of deception, that he got vast numbers of American journalists and the most esteemed media outlets of this country, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and PBS to eagerly serve his agenda-building for war. And the process also induced vast numbers of artists and performers (probably even some in this room tonight) to keep quiet and facilitate the push for an invasion in Iraq.

I'm sure many people who I met in Baghdad, both in my trips prior to and during the occupation, now similarly cannot just look forward. With lives so entirely shattered by a violence of occupation - an ongoing U.S. war effort and the civil war that it has catalyzed. All on the back of a crumbled infrastructure, following eleven years of devastating U.N. sanctions.

And, where is the accountability on behalf of the American dead and wounded, their families, their friends, and the people of the United States who have seen their country become a world pariah. These events have been enabled by people named Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice, as they continue to perpetuate a massive fraud on American democracy and decency.

On January 11, 2003, I made an appearance on Larry King's show following my first trip to Iraq. I suggested that every American mother and father sit down with a scrap of paper and pencil and scribble the following words: Dear Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so - We regret to inform you that your son or daughter so-and-so, was killed in action in Iraq. I then asked that those mothers and fathers complete that letter in whatever way might comfort them should they receive it.

Which is to say that, globally,
the United States is number one
at demanding accountability and
backing up that demand with
imprisonment. But, when it comes
to our president, vice president,
secretary of state, former secretary
of defense... this insistence on
accountability vanishes.

When one considers what a bewildered continuation of those words a parent might attempt to write today, it seems inconceivable that this country could've ever bought into this war. Who were those mothers and fathers believing in?! We know it's not the administration alone, but a culture at large, cloaking itself in self-righteousness, religion, and adolescent hero-dreaming machismo. Would they have believed Rush Limbaugh if they'd known he was high as a kite on OxyContin? Would they have believed the factually impaired Bill O'Reilly if they knew he was massaging his rectum with a loofah while telephonically harassing a staffer? Hannity, had they known he was simply a whore to the cause of his pimps - Murdoch and Ailes? Or the little bow-tie putz, if they knew all he was seeking was a good laugh from Jon Stewart? Maybe our countrymen and women were listening to Ted Haggert while he was whiffing meth and boning a muscle-headed gigolo? Or Mark Foley seeking junior weenis? Joe Lieberman, sitting Shiva? And Toby Keith, singing about how big his boots are?

"Oh, there goes Sean... he had to go and name-call. They say he can't help himself." Or, did I name-call? Maybe I just quickly summed up seven or eight little truths. Oh, no, you're right - I name-called. I said, "putz". I take it back. Or, do I? Did I say "whore?" Pimp? These are questions. But, the real and great questions of conscience and accountability would not loom so ominously - unanswered or evaded at such tremendous cost - without our day-to-day failure to insist on genuine accountability.

Of course we'd prefer some easy ways to get there. But no easy ways exist. Not a new Congress. Not Barack Obama. And, not John McCain. His courage in North Vietnamese prison makes him a heroic man. His voting record in Congress makes him a damaging public servant. We have gotta stand the fuck up and show the world how powerful are the people in a democracy. That's how we regain our position of example, rather than pariah, to the world at large. And that is how we can begin to put up our chins and allow pride and unification to raise our own quality of life and security.

They tell us we lost 3,000 Americans on 9/11. Is that enough? We're about to match it. We're within weeks, if not less, of killing 3,000 Americans in Iraq. I ask Speaker Pelosi, can we put impeachment on the table then? Without former FEMA chief Mike Brown being held accountable, post Katrina (scapegoat though he may have been) we'd have had the same chaos and neglect when Rita hit Houston. Think about it. And, the same people who trumpet deterrence as a justification for punishment when we speak of "crime and punishment" will boast their positive thinking when dismissing the deterrent qualities of an impeachment proceeding.

What is impeachment? It's not a Democratic versus Republican event. Not if used responsibly. If the House of Representatives votes to impeach this president, is he thrown out of office? No, he is not thrown out of office. That is not what impeachment is. Impeachment is the opportunity to proceed with accountability and give our elected senators, democratic and republican, the power to pursue a thorough investigation. The power to put the truth on the table.

Mothers and fathers are losing their kids to horrifying deaths in this war every single day. Horrible deaths. Horrible maimings. Were crimes committed in enlisting the support of our country in this decision to go to war? For the moment we're living the most spineless of scenarios; where the hawks abused impeachment eight years ago, now, the rest of us politely refuse to use it today. Let's give the whistle-blowers cover, let's get the subpoenas out there, and then, one by one, put this administration under oath.

And then, if the crimes of "Treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" are proven, do as Article 2, Section 4 of the United States Constitution provides, and remove "the President, Vice President and... civil officers of the United States" from office. If the Justice Department then sees fit to bunk them up with Jeff Skilling, so be it.

So... look, if we attempt to impeach for lying about a blowjob, yet accept these almost certain abuses without challenge, we become a cum-stain on the flag we wave. You know, I was listening to Frank Rich this morning, speaking on a book tour. He said he thought impeachment proceedings would amount to a "decadent" sidetrack, while our soldiers were still being killed. I admire Frank Rich. And, of course, he would be right if impeachment is all we do. But we're Americans. We can do two things at the same time. Yes, let's move forward and swiftly get out of this war in Iraq AND impeach these bastards.

Christopher Reeve promised to get out of that chair. Well, I don't know about you, but it feels like he's up now and I wouldn't be standing here if it weren't on his shoulders. Let it be for something.

Georgie, there's a crowd downstairs.

Thank you and good night.

Yeah it was. Couldn't resist.

uh?

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,20997072-5005961,00.html

Sectarian passions that have pushed Iraq toward civil war since US troops overthrew Saddam in 2003 could be further inflamed by the film.

"Go to hell!" one official yelled at the former president.

The jerky footage, apparently shot on a mobile phone by a guard or one of about 20 official observers at the dawn hanging, showed people in the execution chamber chanting the name of Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr and Saddam smiling back, saying: "Is this what you call manhood?"

After he falls through the trap, abruptly cut off in his recitation of the Muslim profession of faith, someone in the room cries "The tyrant has fallen!" and the film shows the 69-year-old former strongman swinging on the rope, his eyes open and his neck twisted at a 90-degree angle to his right.

Seemingly accusing his captors of mis-rule, he had earlier replied to the taunt of "Go to hell" by asking: "The hell that is Iraq?"

I felt sick about it. And wondered if I was one of those lefty Sadaam lovers who hate democracy? other people have articulated it better - but it seems like I felt, or feel, that he was executed LESS for crimes against humanity, and MORE for vengeance.

Hanging is still legit in two U.S. states - Washington and...Utah? can't recall and won't google.( Washington definitely) It's disgusting.
I don't agree with the death penalty, but public hanging (and it is a town square, as we all know by participating in this community), is beyond what even the most pro-death penalty advocate could possibly argue for.

I think this sets a disturbing precedent...whose sanctioned death is allowed? because the militants who behead their captives feel sanctioned by Allah. And if a public hanging is allowed on television, with still images of the noose around the captured neck on every front page of every newspaper, why not continue to hang and behead and torture?

If it bleeds, it leads. I'm not making much sense, but i am just really, really sad that my lovely country - MY country - has spent so much time wasting resources and lives in a ridiculous war, and that a public hanging is now a legitimate way to end a regime that is not quite to the liking of the the U.S. regime.

I'm sad that my nation, and my world has come to this point. And I am sad that children have to try to understand "the bad man who was hanged".

-- Charos (abc...), December 31st, 2006. (later)

roffle oh yeah the iraqis are a "sovereign" country, what are you smoking?

in the meantime, can't wait for those permanent us bases!

(j/k)

http://assets.gva.be/Albums/GvA/Cartoons/slides/070102C.jpg

son, papers are always carrying pictures of dead people on p. 1. is being hanged worse than being bombed or shot?

loved his mum too.

For Sunnis, Dictator’s Degrading End Signals Ominous Dawn for the New Iraq

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

BAGHDAD, Dec. 31 — For Sunni Arabs here, the ugly reality of the new Iraq seemed to crystallize in a two-minute segment of Saddam Hussein’s hanging, filmed surreptitiously on a cellphone.

The video featured excited taunting of Mr. Hussein by hooded Shiite guards. Passed around from cellphone to cellphone on Sunday, the images had echoes of the videos Sunni militants take of beheadings.

“Yes, he was a dictator, but he was killed by a death squad,” said a Sunni Arab woman in western Baghdad who was too afraid to give her name. “What’s the difference between him and them?”

There was, of course, a difference. Mr. Hussein was a brutal dictator, while the Shiite organizers of the execution are members of the popularly elected Iraqi government that the United States helped put in place as an attempt to implant a democracy.

It was supposed to be a formal and solemn proceeding carried out by a dispassionate state. But the grainy recording of the execution’s cruel theater summed up what has become increasingly clear on the streets of the capital: that the Shiite-led government that assumed power in the American effort here is running the state under an undisguised sectarian banner.

The hanging was hasty. Laws governing its timing were bypassed, and the guards charged with keeping order in the chamber instead disrupted it, shouting Shiite militia slogans.

It was a degrading end for a vicious leader, and an ominous beginning for the new Iraq. The Bush administration has already scaled back its hopes for a democracy here. But as the Iraqi government has become ever more set on protecting its Shiite constituency, often at the expense of the Sunni minority, the goal of stopping the sectarian war seems to be slipping out of reach.

“We speak about the crimes of Saddam Hussein, but now here we are behaving in the same way,” said Alaa Makki, a prominent Sunni politician. “We fear that nothing has been changed. On the contrary, we feel it is going in a worse direction.”

After the invasion, Sunni Arabs, bitter at losing their place, refused to take part in Iraq’s first elections, allowing Shiites and Kurds to sweep to power. Americans here spent the following months persuading the Shiites to let the Sunnis back in.

The idea, at the time, was that involving Sunnis in politics would drain the insurgency of its violence. Instead, the violence got worse, and in February, the long-abused Shiites struck back, using the force of the state ministries and agencies that they now control.

Now, American officials are pressing Iraqi leaders, both Sunni and Shiite, to reconcile and have made it a central demand for continued support of the Iraqi government. But the prospects for mutual agreement seem ever more distant.

“I can’t think of any good reason for any level-minded person to be interested in reconciliation,” one secular Sunni politician said.

That unwillingness, shared by most of the Shiite political elite, is a serious challenge to any new American strategy proposal that President Bush may announce soon.

Indeed, the Sunni political class is getting smaller. Many of the Sunni politicians once ubiquitous during the broad discussions of the Iraqi Constitution two years ago are now gone. Virtually none of the members of the Association of Muslim Scholars, a hard-line Sunni Arab religious group, are left in Iraq — most of them have gone to Jordan and Syria. Out of more than 50 members of the Baghdad council that runs the city, only one is Sunni.

The reason is that Shiites, who had been driven from their homes and relentlessly slaughtered by Sunni suicide bombers, are now pushing back. The taunting during Mr. Hussein’s execution capped months of advances by Shiite militias, which have forced Sunnis farther back into western Baghdad. But as the Shiites gain the upper hand, they also seem to be abandoning any hint of compromise.

The video, Sunnis said, was a startling symbol of that. In the images, the guards taunt Mr. Hussein. They damn him. They cheer their Shiite heroes so persistently that one observer makes a remark about how the effort to rein in militias does not seem to be going well.

Immediately after they let him drop, in the midst of repeating a prayer, the voices rise in urgency and begin talking excitedly.

Then several others chime in, telling those present to step back from the body and to wait three minutes before touching it.

The video was particularly disturbing for Sunni Arabs, who accuse the government of willfully allowing militias to remain in the ranks of its security forces. It left the impression that the government cared more for revenge than for justice, Sunnis said.

“Either it’s terrible incompetence or it’s an act of revenge — a vendetta,” said Adnan Pachachi, a respected Sunni whose political career began long before Mr. Hussein took power. “That was the impression people had.”

One of the problems was the timing. The execution was rescheduled a number of times, as Iraqi officials raced through a checklist of requirements put forth by the Americans. Two legal conditions — that it not be held on a holiday and that the Iraqi president and his two deputies be given 30 days to sign off on the sentence first — were ignored.

The fact was not lost on Sunni political leaders, including Mr. Makki, who said the execution was a step backward for the country.

“This is a political mistake,” he said. “We lost a lot with this.”

To make matters worse, it fell just as the first day of the Id al-Adha holiday dawned for Sunnis — a day before the Shiites’ observance was to begin. Shiite politicians did not apologize and some even reveled in the timing. That did a major disservice to reconciliation, many argued.

“Why couldn’t they have waited for a few more days?” Mr. Pachachi said. “It was a deliberate insult to so many people. It helped Saddam’s friends.”

Yusra Abdul Aziz, a Sunni teacher in Mansour, had a blunter analysis: “They changed him from a criminal into a martyr.”

In a strange twist, Sunni insurgents did not seem to care. Sunni Jihadist Web sites had virtually no messages about Mr. Hussein’s death, aside from two re-released statements, old debates by militant sheiks over whether he should be considered a martyr.

“The feeling is that they don’t care about him,” said Rita Katz, who runs the SITE Institute, a group that tracks militant Islamist Web sites.

For the more hard-line Sunni Arabs, the execution simply confirmed their view that joining the Shiite government could never work. Sheik Hakam Abdullah al-Shahiri from the Obeid tribe in Kirkuk is an example. “Iraq is occupied now by the U.S. and Iran and a puppet government for both sides,” he said. “With the execution of Saddam the Arab identity of Iraq and its unity have ended.”

That has left moderate Sunnis — those who still seek reconciliation — to ponder the danger of a Shiite hegemony that seems too scarred from past abuses to govern lightly.

“Governing a country should not be done by reflexes,” Mr. Makki said. “It should be wisdom first. A panoramic view.”

“Not behaving from one side,” he added, “like what we saw here.”

An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Kirkuk.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

It's all the fault of the guy who filmed it on his cell phone.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6229097.stm

Other sources have him arrested already:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Man-arrested-over-Saddam-hanging-tape/2007/01/04/1167777180850.html