Saddam, who ruled Iraq with an iron grip for almost 25 years, was hanged in Baghdad around 6 a.m. local time Saturday (10 p.m. ET Friday) in Baghdad's Green Zone, according to state-run Iraqiya television.
"Criminal Saddam was hanged to death," the report said.
The station also quoted Iraqi security adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie as saying Saddam "totally surrendered" and did not resist before being led to the gallows.
He said a judge read the sentence to Saddam, who was taken in handcuffs to the execution room, where he stood while photographs and video footage were taken.
While I don't agree with the things he did, and we could go back and forth on creating a punishment deserving of his crimes, I was sad when I read this.
It's not a happy, he deserved it, kind of a day, but just a sad day.
The bloodshed he caused has led to more bloodshed, which tomorrow will lead to even more bloodshed.
It will not end.
So it is a day for mourning.
I so agree with you, Randall. Sadly this is the human condition.... the way we are.....
ReplyDeleteIsat up until quite late last night listening to news regarding Suddam.I just feel this just not the way to do things. We all know what kind of a man he was,however, tit for tat is not the way to do things. Putting him behind bars for life, I think would have been a more humane thing to do, would't it? Besides who's to say he wouldn't have repented during this? Look at the man's eyes. They are beutiful and yet there was an unexplainable emptiness in them.I got no pleasure in it whe they hung him on the gallows. So sad.
ReplyDeleteIt's a sad thing that he existed at all.
ReplyDeleteNo, execution is not a happy thing, but I don't exactly agree with some of the comments here. Jean's "tit for tat" reference assumes that capital punishment is revenge. It's not -- it's about justice, and the only punishment suitable for crimes of the magnitude and extent of Saddam's. Some people are so evil they simply do not deserve to live. If it were a revenge thing he would probably have been sentenced to death by slow torture....
Part of situations like his especially is that if he were condemned to life in prison there would inevitably be some terrorist group down the road that would kidnap people and demand his release in exchange for their lives -- thus either setting him free or putting even more blood at his feet.
We are all part of human society, and there is a point at which an individual's debt to society is so great that there is only one way to repay it. Millions of Iraqis are at least assured that he will never return to do more harm.