If you`ll notice, from left to right, the heads of the 2nd and 4th guy are pretty much straight up.
Posted on 12/28/2006 1:38:18 AM PST by alnitak
Hundreds of Iraqis have offered to act as hangman in the execution of Saddam Hussein, according to senior officials in the Baghdad Government.
Some requests have been e-mailed to the office of Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, from around the world. Mr al-Maliki has also been directly petitioned by government officials who want to place the noose around Saddam’s neck.
Many ordinary Justice Ministry employees are too terrified to carry out an execution, fearing reprisals from the dead man’s family. Those who do volunteer to act as the executioner may well have lost a relative to violence in the post-Saddam era or had a relative killed by Saddam’s regime.
Saddam lost his appeal on Tuesday against the death sentence for killing 148 Shia from the village of Dujail after a 1982 assassination attempt. In a letter published on a website yesterday he vowed to go to the gallows a true martyr and said he was ready to die as a sacrifice for his country.
The ruling, from a nine-judge appeals court, requires Saddam to be killed within 30 days. The timing remains uncertain, although preparations are likely to be interrupted by the four-day religious holiday of Eid al-Adha, which begins at the weekend.
The machinery for the execution is in place because about 90 prisoners, both Sunni and Shia, have been executed in Iraq since 2004. Saddam is likely to be led to the gallows dressed in an orange prison uniform, his head covered by a cone-shaped black hood.
Saddam, who is being held in a high-security prison in the confines of the Baghdad airport compound, will begin his final hours before a panel of three or four judges. According to an Iraqi government official who has witnessed state exectuions, one of the judges informs the prisoner that he has the right to write a will and leave letters for relatives. The judges will ask him if he wants to confess to anything or ask forgiveness.
The inmate is then led to a special cell called the waiting room to prepare for his death. He can pray, drink water, smoke cigarettes, work on his will, write instruction on where he should be buried and leave letters for his relatives. The guards will also bring him his last meal. “The prisoners will try to drag it out three or four hours but then finally they just want to get it done,” the official said. “Sometimes, they have pushed it back a day.”
When the prisoner is ready, three or four guards place the hood over his face, guide him to the gallows chamber and lead him up about eight steps on to a metal platform where the hangman waits. The hangman also wears a black hood, which has slits for his eyes.
He lowers the noose around the prisoner’s head. The hangman shifts a lever and a metal trap door screeches open. Otherwise, there is only silence as the man drops 15ft through the trap door. “He dies immediately, so he does not suffer. A doctor comes and checks the heartbeat to make sure he is dead. They lower the body to the ground and cover it with a white cloth, put it on a stretcher and then it is taken to the hospital,” the official said.
Although Saddam’s sons, Uday and Qusay, are buried in the family’s tribal cemetery near Tikrit, it is unclear what will happen to his body. He may be buried in secret to prevent the site becoming a scene of reverence or retribution.
More than 160 journalists have been killed in Iraq since the beginning of the conflict in 2003, the International Federation of Journalists said.
National Lottery! Just think how much could be raised in the United States for the opportunity.
wolfstar, like you I have come to expect the worst from most Democrats but I offer that this exists more in terms of words than in terms of deeds.
With control of the House, they have the power to end funding. Either they do what they said they would do or they risk the Whitehouse bid in 08. The best part is if they actually do it, they lose the Whitehouse in 08 anyway!
Saddam was given enough rope to arrange a hanging and in a figurative way, so have the leftist Democrats. Both have sealed their own fate with their own actions.
I would say that about 80% of what the Democrats railed about for 6 years was removed whn they won this last election. Now they have to put up or shut up. Simply put, they don't have anything more to put up today than Saddam himself does.
In the end, meaning when it comes down to actually voting, they know we have to fight this war and that funding is required to see that happen. They know it was right an proper to remove Saddam and even Dick Durbin has actually said it outright. Bill Clinton said it also when he came to the realization that inspections were a failure and he pushed thru regime change as policy. He just never came out and said it plainly Dick Durbin has.
What the Democrats have done is paint themelves into a corner. When they do not have W to point the focus towards, much as the mullahs and imams do in regards to 'The West', that corner will be clear. Not even the MSM will be able to contain it or spin it.
Actually, they don't. They need both the Senate to agree, and a presidential signature on any bill that gets through both houses. The House leadership knows any move to cut off funding will be killed in the Senate either through a filibuster or an outright majority killing it. But if it somehow gets passed, President Bush will veto it.
So the House Dems can vote with impunity to pull the rug out from under the war and really lose nothing in the long run.
The #1 priority of the House Dems, after investigating the Bush administration's every move since 2000, will be to consolidate their hold on power. They will use the arcane House voting rules to do precisely that, and the country be damned. The one thing Democrats understand and practice with surpassing skill is consolidating power. They held the House virtually in an unbroken skein for 62 years. Anyone who thinks we easily will turn them out of power in 2008 is a fool.
If they believe passing a bill to cut off funding will help further their goal of consolidating power in the House, they'll do it in a heartbeat.
The House leadership sets that agenda right? Pelosi could just let any military spending bill for Iraq set idle. Sitting in committee is at the behest of chairs, this is another way to disallow spending. No need for a filibuster when no bill is up for a vote to start with.
The house controls the money and not a cent can be spent in Iraq without it's voting approval. It is understood they cannot spend money all by themselves, but do note that no money can be spent without it's approval. In effect, all Pelosi has to do...is nothing at all.
They will turn themselves out of power in 08 per their own actions/inactions. Sure, the Democrats were able to hold Congressional power for decades. Notice though that times have changed and information travels much faster than during that time. The stranglehold of information the Democrats once held thru the Media is no longer the force it once was. If it was, W would have lost in 2004.
Saddam tried his time tested tricks one too many times and finally they failed. I think the same thing is going to happen to the Democrats that intend to employ their old set of tricks to consolidate power. Sure they may try, but like Saddam......time is up.
During 19 the presidential elections held in the period from 1932-2004, the Dems held a stranglehold on the House and held the Senate most of that time. By 10 to 9, they also won a majority of the presidential elections during that period:
Franklin Roosevelt (D), four times
Harry Truman (D), once
Dwight Eisenhower (R), twice
John Kennedy (D), once
Lyndon Johnson (D), once
Richard Nixon (R), twice
[Gerald Ford (R), served under 3 years but was never elected]
Jimmy Carter (D), once
Ronald Reagan (R), twice
George H.W. Bush (R), once
Bill Clinton (D), twice
George W. Bush (R), twice
As I said, anyone who underestimates the ability of the Dems to consolidate and hold power is a fool. The notion that we will be able to easily defeat them in two years is equally foolish. They may be defeated, but not easily.
All I've seen in the new media is a plethora of fools urging people on the Right side of the political divide to throw power away in some vain pursuit of "sending a message." My point is that regaining power will not be a cakewalk.
I don't think he should be allowed to die by hanging. String him from a thin rope so that it just breaks under the weight of his body. He falls onto the floor and dislocates a couple of upper spinal discs. Then let it 'ripen' for a week till it suffers from inflamation, edema (fluid accumulation), swelling, excruciating pain and he is unable to turn his head. Now have a prison guard grab him by the neck and move him around a little. Repeat 'botched hanging' after a month. And yeah, no pillows. He sleeps in his cell on a hard stone floor.
Looking backwards too long will cause you to crash. This is something you are doing, to an extent, with the list you cite. The things that afforded the Democrats the stanglehold they once held are not the same now as they once were. Therefor your list is lacking at least that context.
The internet cannot apply to any but the last two and even then, the first was just the beginning. Make no mistake, this new age affects both major political parties in the strategies they seek to employ. Old tricks will fail for both.
Republicans needed a message sent, just like the Democrats need it now. Democrats need to be held accountable and their election win forces that in the media for the 2008 run up. This is a good thing for conservatives in the long run.
Which party controls things doesn't much matter when they are both willing to spend to the extent they both have and both are willing to ignore other reality based problems facing this nation.
George W ended the ignorance with his decision to remove Saddam once and for all. This decision was a full two presidential terms late but at least it finally took place. Who controlled Congress was the same so it was not the deciding factor, wouldn't you agree?
What is more important to you? Controlling the congress now or keeping the Whitehouse in 08? People will see better in 08 why removing Saddam was central to the war that has been waged upon us since Jimmah was president. The removal of Saddam may have lost control of congress for the short term but Iraq's success is afoot. The media arranged this and they are bing held to account more and more everyday, especially print media. Conservatism is on the rise as much today as it has been for the last 30 years and even the media cannot stop it no matter how much they try.
No one said it would be easy but you seem to have an attitude that everything is over for the next 60 years because of one second term mid term election. I must respectfully disagree in the strongest of terms.
Removing Saddam is an historic event that future generations look back to in ways similar to Reagan saying 'tear down this wall'. Much has already changed in Iraq to date and much more is to come. A huge leap forward is about to be made after Saddam is executed. When this happens the American people that were duped by the MSM will realize their mistake. What is left ( of the hard left) will not be able to vote in a President and I doubt they retain congress.
The only caveat I offer there is that the Republican Party had better hear.....and they better put forth candidates that are worth voting for. If the plan is to vote against the Democrat, 08 is a bigger loss than 06.
Saddam is about to swing and that is good for the entire world. Democrats will never be able to grasp that big picture and that wll be their downfall. This win will hurt them more than it will help them.
If you`ll notice, from left to right, the heads of the 2nd and 4th guy are pretty much straight up.
--hanging of the Lincoln conspirators in 1865. One eyewitness said when they fell a few were wiggling around for a while, which means they were choking to death. --
The same thing happened to Von Ribbentrop at Nuremberg.
All it takes is a miscalculation in his body wieght of 7-10 lbs. and you'll get a dangler...
Cut the last meal, and that may do it...
Well if they found that wood chipper he and his sons liked so much...That would do the job...Heck, it worked for them...
Its got to be around somewhere...Right???
It`s fascinating, gruesome but fascinating. For decades, centuries even, people who have never witnessed it, have always assumed that a hanging meant instant death. But it seems instant death is more than likely not always 100% guaranteed.
One could find him or herself alive hanging by the end of that rope with a crushed trachea or any number of things that comes with a hanging just as equally as an instant death. I think it all depends on the bodily weight of the prisoner (or the victim), how he braces himself, tightens the neck muscles, and how the rope is placed. Most people who are hanged in this manner only fall a few feet, hardly enough for the weight of their body to reach maximum velocity.
All those factors decide whether one goes out instantly or suffers extreme trauma to the throat and neck area, unable to cry out, unable to breath.
Saddam should be told this each and every day! And I bet that hole hiding cowardly b*tch will be pleading for his life after the second.
More interesting reading to send Saddam......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanging
May I suggest he get the "short drop".
"He dies immediately,so he doesn't suffer."Hanging is far too easy for Saddam.One last time they ought to crank up the industrial shredder Saddam and his sociopathic sons were so fond of.
Yes, as physics cannot be denied.
Too long a fall and their peanut is removed.
Decapitation.
Appropriate.
Nothing, as far as I can tell.
I went to the source link, and that sentence has a bullet point on it, almost like it was added as an "interesting fact" filler in a print edition.
Three, maybe four times.
"I don't think he should be allowed to die by hanging. "
I don't believe he should be tortured to death, either. Torturing a sick animal just because it's a sick animal is inhumane. Hang, shoot, or inject, but get it over with. Then wash hands and on with life. Just because he was a sick puppy doesn't mean the rest of us have to turn into one, too.
he doesn't deserve a clean hanging
plastic shredder
napalm
a face full of the same stuff he dropped on the Kurds.
That sounds like the football coaching methodology of Saddam's sons.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.