Saddam Hussein to hang
By the time you read this, Saddam Hussein and some of his henchmen shall have been hanged.
Although I’m not generally a fan of capital punishment, I think there are certain particularly egregious instances where it’s warranted. Cases involving crimes against humanity and genocide rank up there in my mind.
I don’t think Hussein’s crimes and the punishment therefore warrant any comparatives to what the US is doing anywhere in the world with regard to CIA rendition, torture, etc. Hussein’s crimes stand alone and must be judged alone.
Good riddance to him and his ilk. I hope his victims and their survivors take some small comfort in his fate.
Bullsh*t Detector (aka Keyboard Warrior & Buffalo Hater) Says:December 29th, 2006 at 11:32 pm
Bravo, excellent post. I’d only like to add to the execution list the following: Castro (who may be dead already), Jong Ill, Mugabe.
TourPro Says:December 30th, 2006 at 2:21 am
I for one won’t shed any tears for such a brutal man. Anyone who thinks justice hasn’t been served should enlighten themselves with the brutality that this man represented. Will this mark a new beginning in Iraq? We shall see.
North Buffalo Journal and Review » Blog Archive » Was Justice Served by Hanging Hussein? Says:December 30th, 2006 at 6:12 am
[…] Many people, including BuffaloPundit, believe that justice was served by the hanging of Saddam Hussein. If this is true, there are others who conspired with Saddam Hussein and deserve the same fate. There are questions that must be answered and not ignored if this whole sordid chapter in our history is to have any real value for the future. Saddam, the Butcher of Baghdad, was created by the United States government. Hussein’s crimes do not stand alone, he was aided and abetted by the United States government. Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds? We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam’s weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Could he not have been handed over to the Iranians for sentencing for this massive war crime? Of course not. Because that would also expose our culpability. […]
dave Says:December 30th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
With his trial as long as it was - to have a rushed execution like that… just rubs me the wrong way. I don’t understand whatever legal system Iraq was trying Hussein in, but it seemed rather “thrown together”. I would think better justice be done to the victims of Saddam’s crimes by a better plan for peace and reconstruction, not a hanging.
The whole thing appears as a cover-up for something else. Or Bush looking for a pat on the back.
Certainly not Justice.
hank kaczmarek Says:December 30th, 2006 at 3:19 pm
When one man, or one man and few dozen cronies die for the deaths of several hundred thousand people, There can be no justice as you can only kill them once. Too bad you can’t kill them MORE than once.
North Buffalo Journal–Mike can’t sleep through the night until he finds a reason to Blame America for EVERYTHING. Sometimes I wonder why he’s not left the country for someplace better if our country is so terrible, like Havana perhaps.
I’m with Alan on this one. This guy HAD to go.
The Iraqis needed to decide what to do with him. We turned him over to them, they killed him. It wasn’t our decision to make, and we didn’t make it.
Over the centuries in the Middle East, death has been the penalty for offenses much less severe and aggregious than waging war against your own citizens with chemical weapons.
Terry Says:December 30th, 2006 at 4:47 pm
In God We Trust (except for that one Commandment, eh?)
sam johnson Says:December 31st, 2006 at 12:21 pm
This was a very politically dumb move by Bush. Hussein is now a martyr for the growing Iraq resistance especially the Sunni element. By killing him, we have legitimized him internationally in the muslem world as a martyr fighting against western Zionist imperialism. (like Che)
Hank, as usual you have the events wrong .
The “Grand Trial” was a failed staged political event funded with U.S. taxpayer dollars. The trial has been heavy criticized by the U.S. and the International legal community as unjustice and unfair. The trial was closer to Stalin’s political trials of the thirties than Nürnberg. Hussein was turn over to the “Iraq government” 6 hours before his execution, until then he was in U.S. hands in Kuwait. The process was until U.S. control. The international community knows that the U.S. government is responsible for the execution.
Hank, regarding the use of chemical weapons, I know it is hard for you to read liberal material but try reading the official U.S. military College report on the use CW on the Kurds. It asks some serious questions about the “official” story.
Reagan administration sold Hussein the CW’s he used on the Irans. Hussein was a killer and despot but he was our (U.S.) killer.
The funny thing about reactionary fascist types like Hank. Since Nixon (Viet Nam war) they have come to believe situational PR (propaganda) is an antidote for hard political reality. Iraq is a classic example, stay the course, we are winning, etc. etc. all regardless of the bloody reality.
Hank, it is patriots like you that made Bush’s fascism a growing reality.
Love it or leave or we will lock you up in Camp America
eac Says:December 31st, 2006 at 12:41 pm
That is a contemptibly shallow analysis, Alan.
O RLY????
BuffaloPundit Says:December 31st, 2006 at 3:52 pm
Ethan - you can link to 100 pictures of Rumsfeld with Saddam Hussein, but as I posted to Mike’s site:
Saddam may have been a bad man when we supported him, but we didn’t ask him to commit genocide. There’s a big, enormous, honking difference.
Mike In WNY Says:December 31st, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Supplying Hussein with chemical weapons facilitated his subsequent actions. We did not support him because he was a “good” person, but because his ability to rule Iraq was perceived as a furtherance of our foreign policy’s agenda. Giving Saddam chemical weapons and not expecting him to use them is like supplying a pyromaniac with incendiary materials and telling him not to start any fires.
BFLOnian Says:December 31st, 2006 at 10:51 pm
I think this was Baby Boy’s Christmas present to Poppy. It’s the gift that keeps giving.
eac Says:December 31st, 2006 at 11:49 pm
What Mike said.
That a singular loathsome fellow gets “his due” should comfort anyone at all while all around Iraq the bodies –ours, and in geometric proportion, theirs–are piling up is a total mystery to me.
BuffaloPundit Says:January 1st, 2007 at 7:21 am
Ethan and Mike: He used mustard gas against the Kurds. That’s a technology from WWI. Do you really believe that the US suppled Hussein with mustard gas - a 1910s item - to use against anyone? Even Counterpunch doesn’t say we supplied the gas. It says Reagan looked the other way during a pretty hamhanded support of Iraq in order to try and punish Iran for the hostages, and to lure Hussein away from the Soviet sphere of influence.
Do not ascribe to the United States that which it did not commit. Reagan may have looked the other way, but that doesn’t mean Hussein is absolved of his crimes.
In other words, ascribe to Washington the crimes that are Washington’s. What my original post was talking about was Saddam’s crimes. If you believe that the US is implicated in their commission, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
raoul duke Says:January 2nd, 2007 at 11:37 am
eac- “That a singular loathsome fellow gets “his due†should comfort anyone at all while all around Iraq the bodies –ours, and in geometric proportion, theirs–are piling up is a total mystery to me.”
Right on. 3000 American soldiers, hundreds of thousands Iraqi civilians are all dead and this is the only thing we have to show for it? A sham of a trial and a very partisan (and morally reprehensible, in my opinion) execution? Mission accomplished? Can we get the hell out of there now and start the show trials for the blatant war crimes committed by our citizens now?
This solves nothing. Justice was not served. How could justice even exist, if there is no stable government to uphold it?
eac Says:January 2nd, 2007 at 1:20 pm
It is a matter of record, not of belief- this is history, not bible class.
hank kaczmarek Says:January 2nd, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Sam Johnson–Tighten that tinfoil hat, it might be windy today.
I’ll stand with BP—WE didn’t tell Hussein What to do with Anything we gave him, which to all I can find was Intelligence–NOT chemical weapons.
We have much better chemical agents we could have given or sold him.
If you’ve never seen the effects of our newer agents, shame on you.
I didn’t see any Americans involved in the trial, except Ramsey Clark, who might as well be a “citizen of the world Community”, he sure don’t act like any American I’ve met, on either side of the spectrum.
It DOES give all the Bush haters among you, and that’s MOST of you, something to make straw men up for, and get your Two Minutes Bush Hate in for the day.
Saddam’s now just like Uday and Qusay====DEAD-AY. And that’s just fine with me, and anyone in Iraq who’s not a Sunni.
Any other liberal whining will be filtered out.
Have a nice day.
sam johnson Says:January 2nd, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Hank:
I know facts are always optional when it comes to a good right-wing fascist rap but the facts stand we sold him the Chemical weapons through the US Department of Agriculture as agricultural credits.
The issue is not Bush, the issue is 3000plus americans dead, 50,000plus americnas wounded or injuried, 655,000 Iraqs dead and a projected cost of a trillion US taxpayer dollars. For what?
Hank, if anyone needs a tinfoil hat it is people like you who support Bush and his failed policys.
hank kaczmarek Says:January 2nd, 2007 at 6:07 pm
Of course you’re just ASSUMING I agree with the President on EVERYTHING. You don’t know me very well. I’ve disagree with him on many issues, just as many Republicans and Conservatives do.
It’s been mentioned President Ford used the Veto over 80 times in his short stewarship as President. GWB doesn’t seem to know what a veto is.
If you lived where I do, as a refugee from the failed policies of the Buffalo and NYS Political Machines, you would know I don’t agree with GWB’s immigration Policy. My ancestors had to come through Ellis Island, Nobody guaranteed them SHIT from the moment they arrived in this country. If you think I agree with what GWB and the R’s have planned for our Hispanic “Illegales”, I’d like you to share whatever you’re smokin’ with me. PRESS ONE FOR ENGLISH? MY ASS.
Este es Ustados Unidos—El Idioma PRIMERO en Estados Unidos esta’ Engles, Verdad?
Tu Vivo Aqui?
Tu Trabajando Aqui? THEN SPEAK ENGLISH OR CARRY YOUR ASS BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM!
I had to learn Spanish because I lived where the primary language was Spanish (Puerto Rico), even though it is a US Imperial Possession. Why can’t the legal and Illegal immigrants do as immigrants from other countries have been doing for 200 years? How can they respect our laws when they broke one to get here?
BTW–That’s POLICIES—You Must have been taught by Union Teachers.
Mike In WNY Says:January 2nd, 2007 at 6:27 pm
The United States did right to hand over Serb tyrant Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague. Why wasn’t Saddam afforded the same justice? Because Saddam had to be silenced before he told the world about his long collusion with the United States. Dead men tell no tales!
sam johnson Says:January 2nd, 2007 at 11:11 pm
Hank:
Do you agree with Bush’s bloody war?
eac Says:January 10th, 2007 at 11:35 am
know we’ve moved on, but for the record (and since I sure don’t have the time to type this sort of thing out myself)
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/46513/#more