A handout photograph released by the Iraqi Special Tribunal on August 23, 2005, shows former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein being questioned at an undisclosed location. A senior Catholic cleric has said he hopes Saddam will be spared execution, citing the Church's opposition to the death penalty. REUTERS/Iraqi Special Tribunial/Handout/Files
Saddam has MySpace?
Cardinal condemns Saddam‘s sentence
2006/12
ROME - A top Vatican official condemned the death sentence against Saddam Hussein in a newspaper interview published Thursday, acknowledging the crimes of the ousted Iraqi leader but reiterating that capital punishment goes against the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church.
Cardinal Renato Martino, Pope Benedict XVI ‘s top prelate for justice issues and a former Vatican envoy to the United Nations , said that Saddam‘s execution would punish "a crime with another crime" and expressed hope that the sentence would not be carried out.
"The death penalty is not a natural death. And no one can give death, not even the State," he said.
On Tuesday, Iraq ‘s highest court rejected Saddam‘s appeal against a conviction and death sentence for the killing of 148 people in Dujail, in northern Iraq, in 1982. The court said the former president should be hanged within 30 days.
http://www.leadingthecharge.com/ViewArticle.aspx?id=38018&source=2
Pay-per-view opportunity?!
Tick Tick Goodbye Tick...????...wait Saddam we have good news and bad news...the good news is the guy in the next cell wants to buy your shoes......the bad news, on credit
Bu'Bye...
It is an under-reported fact that many of Saddam's former officers in the Baathist elements of the insurgency have continued to entertain serious hope of restoring the dictator to power. My experience with Baathist sympathizers during my recent assignment in Iraq was that this is even more widespread among the rank and file. Saddam himself has referred to this several times during his trial and his American quisling lawyers have supported the assertion.
The standard media response was simply to laugh it off as the delusion of a condemned psychopath, something like Hitler's last-days raving about "secret weapons" that would turn the tide of war. (And let us not forget that there was a lot of substance to Nazi claims of super-weapons, though the allies had them trumped with the atomic bomb.)
The reason for the lack of emphasis on this desire to restore Saddam is obvious: media shills would not want anyone to think that something as simple as hanging one criminal could derail a large part of the insurgency. It just does not fit with the media-left worldview that terrorism and insurgency could spring from anything but the most deep-rooted and legitimate motives; poverty, oppression, colonialism, etc.
At the risk of belaboring the obvious, just stringing the bastard up will not end the Baathist insurgency entirely, especially in the short run. They will pander to the media and the Democratic Congress, for example, by representing all of their subsequent attacks as "Dire Revenge" for the hanging. Of course, these are attacks they would have carried out anyway, but the usual suspects are desperately willing to be taken in by the claim.
It fits their "cycle of violence" meme perfectly and they are loathe to even consider other possibilities, even very obvious ones.
In the longer term, support for the Baathist elements will decline, probably at a precipitous rate. This will not eliminate AQ and the Al-Sadr forces, though AQ may have a hard time of it in some areas without Baathist support, but it will allow our resources to be concentrated better.
He is the biggest mass murderer alive today.
It will be a good lesson to all future mass murderers that the hangman's noose is waiting for them.
It is time to kick the dictators out.
Thanks Tex..ALWAYS great to see your threads.. so full of info.
I cant help but wonder how great it could have been for Iraq if Saddam had used his cunning/power/abilities to do good rather than evil.. Wonder if he is totally in denial how much harm he did to his subjects, not just the murders, which were awful, but overall for the social, political, etc picture and how he strangled the life out of decency, happiness & prosperity for his people..
Don't let the (trap) door hit ya, Saddamn....
Soon Saddam will be facing the ultimate judge and will have to honestly account for what he has done without propaganda, Ramsey Clark or concern from world opinion.
They should put him through a meat grinder like he did to so many of the Iraqi people.
Turn out the light, the party is over!
Say good night, Saddam.
Allah be merciful to you and let you stand outside the gates of Paradise for an eternity, seeing but unable to enjoy the sights, hearing but unable to join in the promised revelry that comes to the good souls who have been granted entrance. The Lord of Darkness shall welcome you home anytime.
This has already been re-enacted on South Park.
What has caused Saddam to fall out of favor with the Americans? After all, he was allied with the Americans back in the '80s against our common enemy, Iran.
It was probably due to the fact that Saddam viewed himself as the modern day "Saladin" who would one day rule all over the Middle East, establishing a caliph.
Also, Saddam's close advisors were not allowed to tell him the truth of what was really going on in the World, fearing that they would be tortured for being "disloyal". So right until the very end, Saddam did not fear that the Americans were going to check his growing power in the Middle East and gambled incorrectly that America was a "paper tiger".
If Saddam had learned his lesson after being too arrogant at the end of Iraq-Iran war, and stopped being threatening to Kuwait, things could had ben very, very different.