Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
Me and my kind, how quick you are to judge. Please note down all you did to bring Saddam to justice, easy to sit behind the keyboard and try to take high moral ground. Saddam was unacceptable but the current puppet regime is no different. What have they done to stem the tide of the killings going on. How very pathetic.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
And exactly how many criminals have you seen in the US get taunted by a mob before death? Perhaps you should take your own advice and study it. In the US it is done behind closed doors. In Saudi Arabia criminals are executed after being given a sedative so they don't sway back and forth or resist during the beheading. So any taunting won't have any effect on them. Saddam had a lot of pride because he was a leader of a country and in the public eye. He has lost more and fallen more in the public and entire world's eye than your average rapist or murderer off the street. So for a leader living in lavish palaces to have fallen from the very top to the hangman's loose and be taunted by his enemies, he certainly DID keep his composure at the time. Thats the point. And try reading the thread in its entirety in future, no one has forgotten his crimes.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
This thread is about Saddam, open a seperate one if you wish to discuss a different topic. - Ehsan
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
This is what happens to the conquered people: all dignity and respect goes out the window.
Powerful decide what's right for you and what's not.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
So what has Iraq achieved since 2003. In Saddam's era they used to have kangroo courts where the decision was made before the case started and brutal punishment was meted out. After the "liberation" the only thing that changed was that the decision came from Washington and the rest was the same. So how is this regime any better than Saddam's. In one respect that liberators and the puppet regime has out done Saddam, that more Innocent people in Iraq have died under them than they ever did under Saddam. How pathetic.
The difference would be that the people killed in these kinda courts will not be those who will be against the Iraq government, killing will not be based on religion/sect, only those people will be killed who are done with for the interests of someone outside Iraq or so called 'threat to international peace'.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
Saddam didn't deserve to live. But, the manner in which the execution was carried out is appalling; especially on the day of the Eid. It was nothing but a show of revenge. *[edit] *
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
^
Is it a comment on Saddam's execution or a lame attempt to insult Shia & their leaders in Iraq?
You need a lesson in Iraqi current affairs before you begin to rant, dearie.
Sistani has nothing to do with the US installed puppet regime. He is neither a political figure nor his word is considered to have influence on what the present government does.
If you know a bit of recent history, Saddam didn't only kill Iraqi Shia. He was also responsible for the murder of thousand Sunni Kurds. His execution might look like revenge, but don't forget that it was true justice to put him to death for all he had done over the two decades. i.e.; killing of all political opponents, killing innocent people, both Shia and Kurds, waging an aggressive war against Iran and Kuwait which resulted in millions dead. . .and the list goes on.
To hang him on Eid day is something unethical. It shouldn't have been so. I condemn Iraqi regime for doing so. Yet it doesn't mean that a ruthless and brutal mosnter though a brave and fearless man like Saddam became a martyr. He is far from that.
I wish he would have been brought down, tried and executed by the Iraqis themselves without any foreign intervention but Iraqis were too lazy to do this over the decades. It saddens me that everything became possible due to foreign occupiers.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
It was very disturbing, execution should have been done in a humane way, the whole process was sad and disturbing. From yelling "Go to hell" to people taking pictures and making video. There is no sense of satisfaction in watching the video or pictures related to Saddam's execution.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
^^ True, pinochet and milosivich, deserved the same ending.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
^ :nono: Pinochet killed left wing socialists, the scums in the eyes of the west, so he was a hero, so what if he killed thousands of them. America approved and that is all that matters and according to Thatcher he was a great man. What more approval do you need.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
Greatest folly after the invasion
The way Saddam Hussein’s vengeful execution took place yesterday, in less than a week after the handing down of his death sentence, was as unbecoming as his hurry-hurry trial. “We wanted him to be executed on a special day,” the dawn of Eid-ul-Adha in Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s national security adviser Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie told state-run television. He added that “Saddam was treated with respect when he was alive and after his death.” Last year video footage about the Americans’ maltreatment of Saddam Hussein in prison – in one clip the shirtless former president is washing his clothes – had caused worldwide condemnation. Saddam Hussein even claimed during his trial that he had received a beating by Americans soldiers. As for respect for his body, a government colleague of Mr al-Rubaie exulted in a telephone interview with NBC: “This…is lying at my feet” – using the s-o-b abuse for the corpse.
Mr al-Rubaie made another contestable statement: “Saddam’s execution was one hundred per cent Iraqi and the American side did not interfere.” However, it is an American judge who late Friday rejected a last-minute appeal by the lawyers of Saddam Hussein, who had been in US custody almost to the end. “Petitioner Hussein’s application for immediate, temporary stay of execution is denied,” the district judge said in Washington, after a hearing conducted over telephone from Baghdad. Television footage of the moments before a composed Saddam Hussein was led to the gallows shows prison staff in masks. The masks would leave room for argument that at least some of them were American. There is also the question of whether it should have been a public hanging.
But now that it’s all over, the question arises whether the execution will have a positive effect on the Iraqi situation. Even President Bush, who insisted in reaction to the hanging that the former dictator “was executed after receiving a fair trial,” admitted that “bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq.” The rushing of more American soldiers to Kuwait, not to mention the high alert on which US troops have been put in Iraq, proves there is shrinking room for hope on this score. Mr Bush’s understatement notwithstanding, Iraq appears to face a frightening prospect after the execution: the widening of the sectarian and ethnic divide in a country where ethnic-cleansing is so intense in many parts that the mayhem that took place in Yugoslavia pales in brutality. The Gulf region and Iraq’s other neighbours like Syria would be fortunate if the sectarian strife did not spread there following the probable worsening of the Iraqi chaos. To return to the subject of the trial and execution being entirely an Iraqi affair, two coincidences are difficult to accept. The death sentence against Saddam Hussein had originally been handed down on Nov 5, two days before the US mid-term elections. That was put down to the Bush administration’s effort to influence the elections. And he was sent to the gallows days before the convening of Congress on Jan 4.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
*Whatever saddam did was not worse than what Putin is STILL doing in chechnya, but putin gets to drink vodka with Bush and Saddam gets the gallows.. Thats justice for You.
in 2007. *:)
BTW: A happy New Year to all.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
was Saddam really this cruel?
Is the guy with monchay (whiskers) is him??
The execution full vdo is posted in the vdo section.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
^^thats the sickest s**t ive ever seen
it wasnt saddam, dont know what country it was, dont even know if its genuine. iraqis as weve come to know are capable of these monsterous acts.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
u can come up with your own suggestions.
as ar as house cleaning before pointing fingers outside, I am in complete support of getting rid of all religious extremists in Pakistan.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
[quote]
Please note down all you did to bring Saddam to justice, easy to sit behind the keyboard and try to take high moral ground. Saddam was unacceptable but the current puppet regime is no different. What have they done to stem the tide of the killings going on. How very pathetic.
[/quote]
Your right. I did nothing. But I do take responsibility for this. I'm just asking you to do the same. Even now.......there arent many threads in this forum or others by Muslims condemning Alqaeda and their sorts for the killing of women and children.
[quote]
And exactly how many criminals have you seen in the US get taunted by a mob before death? Perhaps you should take your own advice and study it. In the US it is done behind closed doors.
[/quote]
Its closed to the public but not to the family and friends of the victims. And in such cases its quite common for them to be taunted. You can stand on the side and display you disgust at people taunting a man before dying.......and I agree it is distasteful....but try putting yourself in their shoes, if you were watching a man responsible for the murder of your mother, sister or son. Try a little empathy once in a while.
[quote]
So for a leader living in lavish palaces to have fallen from the very top to the hangman's loose and be taunted by his enemies, he certainly DID keep his composure at the time. Thats the point.
[/quote]
I understand what your saying.I just fail to understand why his composure is even being discussed. As for dignity.....I say again.......A man with true dignity would have used the gun he had with him before being taken prisoner. A man with dignity would live by the code he extolled others to live by i.e. to die fighting for their vountry which saddam clearly didnt do. Taking all this into account, him going meekly to the gallows isnt dignity....its resignation to ones fate. It amazes me how we sometimes foget the major things and fascinate ourselves by a few minor buts and scraps.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
The Shias in Iraq, that are currently in power, are nothing but a bunch of opportunistic thugs, serving merely as puppets of the US. Careful and systematic eradication of Sunnis from all higher posts in the Iraqi government is taking place. The Sunnis scholars - secular & religious - being murdered ruthlessly by the gangs lead by the criminal Muqda- Al - Sadr & Aziz Al Hakim. Both of them bear allegiance to the grand Satan Sistani.
No need to twist the facts. Sistani is the real ideological figure behind the extermination of the Sunnis. He does not have to be an actual member of the Iraqi puppet parliament, when his dirty work is conducted by the followers.
Well, whether anyone condemn it or not, it does not matter diddly squat. No denial that Saddam was a criminal. But the Shia puppet regime, which has taken over Iraq, is much worse.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
Just read another story in Guardian that Saddam was in middle of his final prayer when the lever was pulled. The man was executed on first day of Sunni eid, was taunted by his executioners and was executed in middle of his prayer. All of this looks like a revenge killing then justice. Such acts don’t heal a nation but further divide them.
Salon did a great story on Saddam’s execution. Here is the excerpt:
There were quite a lot a discrepancies in his trial and outcome was predetermined.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
How Saddam died on the gallows
Camera footage of the final minutes of Saddam Hussein released yesterday shows him being taunted by Shia hangmen and witnesses, a scene that risks increasing sectarian tension in Iraq.
As he stood at the gallows, he was tormented by the hooded executioners or witnesses shouting at him to “Go to hell” and chanting the name “Moqtada”, the radical Shia Muslim cleric and leader of the Mahdi army militia, Moqtada al-Sadr, and his family.
The grainy images, which appeared to have been taken on a mobile phone, disclose exchanges between Saddam and his tormentors, the moment when his body drops through the trapdoor, and his body swinging, eyes partly open and neck bent out of shape. In what Sunni Muslims will perceive as a further insult, the executioners released the trapdoor while the former dictator was in the middle of his prayers.
Sunni Muslims, who were dominant under Saddam, but are now the victims of sectarian death squads, will see the shambolic nature of the execution as further evidence of the bias of the Shia-led government. They have repeatedly claimed that the Iraqi government, helped by the US and British, conducted a show trial, based on revenge rather than justice.
Saddam’s team of defence lawyers claimed that the hanging had been simply “victors’ justice”.
The unruly scenes will also dismay the US and British governments, that are also privately alarmed at the sectarian bias of the government, led by the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. The US and Britain believe at least some members of the Iraqi government are complicit in sectarian killings, particularly by members of the police force.
The Iraqi government last night denied the execution had been sectarian or designed for revenge. Hiwa Osman, an adviser to the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, told the BBC: “This whole execution is about justice.”
As Saddam was buried in this home village, Awja, outside Tikrit, yesterday morning, the leaked footage appeared on the internet and on Arabic television stations. While Saddam was professing Muhammad as God’s prophet, he was interrupted by shouts. One of the people observing the execution chants “Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada”. Saddam dismissively repeats the name Moqtada. The noose around his neck, he appears to smile and shoots back: “Do you consider this bravery?”
Another voice shouts at him to “Go to hell”. Saddam, seemingly accusing his enemies of destroying the country he once led, replies: “The hell that is Iraq?”
A Shia shouts “Long live Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr,” a member of Moqtada’s family thought to have been assassinated by Saddam’s security services. Another onlooker pleads for dignity: “Please don’t, the man is facing execution. Please don’t. I beg you, no!”
As Saddam continues with his prayers, saying “I profess that there is no God but God and that Muhammad …”, the executioners release the trapdoor. There is a shout: “The tyrant has fallen.”
Although many Sunni Muslims also suffered under him and were glad to see him go, the manner in which the execution was carried out will have created some sympathy for Saddam. The fact that the execution took place at the start of the main Muslim religious holiday will further inflame Sunni opinion.
The tit-for-tat killings between the majority Shias, who suffered badly under Saddam, and the previously dominant Sunnis, has created a de facto civil war that could break up the country. Sunni insurgents, particularly a branch of al-Qaida, have sought to fan the civil war by carrying out a series of devastating car bomb attacks on Shia population centres, particularly Sadr City in Baghdad and towns such as Hilla and Najaf.
The response among Sunnis to the hanging and the video was to swear revenge. A man from Mosul, a mixed city in the north, told Reuters: “The Persians have killed him. I can’t believe it. By God, we will take revenge.” He was referring to Iraq’s new leaders’ ties to Shia Iran, and the Shia in general.
Accusations that the government had mishandled the execution were not confined to Sunni regions. In the Kurdish region, there was also criticism. “This execution should have been for all of Saddam’s victims, and instead they have hijacked it and turned it into a sectarian event,” said Anwar Abdullah, a student at the technical institute of Sulaymaniyah.
Rebwar Suliman, 21, whose uncle and grandfather were killed by Saddam’s secret police in Kurdistan in the 1980s, said: “It does a dishonour to the Kurds.”
Saddam was buried in the dead of night, prompting an outpouring of grief and anger from fellow members of his tribe and other Sunni Arabs. His body was flown by US military helicopter to Tikrit and then taken to the village where he was born.
Hundreds of mourners visited his tomb inside a marble-floored hall built by Saddam. Others attended the Great Saddam Mosque in Tikrit.
The funeral came as it was reported that the US death toll in Iraq since the invasion had reached 3,000. The US military had disclosed yesterday that an American soldier had been killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Saturday, the 2,999th death since the invasion in 2003. But the website www.icasualties.org, yesterday also listed the death of Specialist Dustin Donica, 22, on December 28 as previously unreported, bringing the total to 3,000. George Bush is expected to face renewed domestic political pressure following the latest milestone. Although the 3,000 figure is symbolically important for Americans, Iraqis suffer that rate of casualties on a monthly basis.
Re: Saddam Hussein is Dead
Another account:
Saddam hanging taunts evoke ugly past
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6221751.stm
By John Simpson
World affairs editor, BBC News, Baghdad
A few hours after Saddam Hussein’s execution, the Iraqi government put out a videotape of what had happened. There was no sound on the tape, and it ended at the point where the executioners put the rope around his neck. It all seemed weirdly calm and dignified.
Not so. One of the witnesses managed to get a mobile phone into the execution chamber, and recorded the entire event, from the time when Saddam is brought into the chamber, his hands and feet shackled, to the moment when his body is hanging lifeless at the end of the rope.
It is shocking, of course. But the most shocking thing about it is the sound.
Far from being a quiet and dignified business, the new video shows that several of the witnesses taunted Saddam during the last seconds of his life, chanted the name of one of his many enemies, and told him he was going to hell.
Ugly affair
Altogether, the execution as we now see it is shown to be an ugly, degrading business, which is more reminiscent of a public hanging in the 18th Century than a considered act of 21st Century official justice. The key passage on the video-tape comes after the official version was cut off.
As Saddam stands there on the trapdoor, with the noose being tightened around his neck by one of the four executioners, their faces covered by balaclavas, the shouting starts up among the group of official witnesses.
At first you can hear a Shia version of an Islamic prayer being called out.
Saddam Hussein was, of course, a Sunni Muslim, and all this was unquestionably intended as a sectarian insult.
Then the same voice starts calling out the name of the leading Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr, the formal leader of the Mehdi Army, was an open enemy of Saddam. Saddam is not intimidated by any of this, and repeats Moqtada Sadr’s name disdainfully, as if to say he doesn’t count for very much.
Then his gruff, rasping voice can be heard saying to the onlookers “Is this manly behaviour?”
But someone calls out “You’re going to hell.”
One of the witnesses, concerned about all this, says “Keep quiet - he’s just about to die.”
Shocked
Saddam Hussein scarcely has an instant to collect his thoughts. He starts to mutter a prayer, but just as he speaks the name Muhammad, the chief hangman pulls the lever and the trapdoor opens.
With terrible, shocking force, Saddam’s body plunges into the drop.
His death must have been virtually instantaneous.
The next image shows him hanging, clearly dead. Even the onlookers sound shocked as they chant their prayers. Walking round in Baghdad this evening, as people hurried home in the black-out to celebrate their New Year’s Eve in the security of their own homes, it seemed that everyone knew all about the new video.
The people I spoke to, who seemed to be Sunni Muslims, were shocked by it.
They also appeared to be distinctly nervous that the video would sharpen the already serious sectarian divide here.
Under Saddam Hussein, prisoners were regularly taunted and mistreated in their last hours. For many of them, death must have come as a relief.
But the most disturbing thing about the new video of Saddam’s execution for crimes precisely like this, is that it is all much too reminiscent of what used to happen here. It is going to be increasingly difficult for the government of Nouri Maliki to convince Sunni Arabs here that Saddam’s execution was not merely an act of retaliation.
