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Reluctant Hero · Posted: Sat Dec 30, 2006 10:22 pm Post subject: Saddam Executed

I think the writing was on the wall ever since he got captured "down a hole." I think the "eye for an eye" philosophy is totally wrong though. What gives the authorities the right to end someones life, no matter what they have done in the past? It's like playing God.

Perhaps a bigger question is, if the Americans managed to find Saddam down a hole, how have they still not caught Bin Laden?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6219861.stm

Saddam death 'ends dark chapter'

Saddam Hussein's execution has closed a dark chapter in Iraq's history, Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has said.
Mr Maliki said the former leader had faced his fate "like all tyrants".

Shias celebrated the pre-dawn hanging while some Sunni towns saw protests. About 70 people died in attacks in two mainly Shia areas after the execution.

The former Iraqi leader was sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on 5 November over the killings of 148 Shias from the town of Dujail in the 1980s.

Iraqi state TV showed images of Saddam Hussein, 69, being taken to the gallows in a Baghdad building his intelligence services once used for executions.

I feel saddened by the death of Saddam, not because he deserved to live but because it is taking place under US occupation of Iraq

Nafeesa Zafar, Pakistan

However the moment of his execution was not shown. Pictures of his body wrapped in a shroud were later broadcast on TV.

The hanging took place just days after he lost an appeal and hours after he was handed over from US custody.

There remains some confusion over where the former Iraqi leader is to be buried.

His body was reportedly flown to his home village of Awja near Tikrit, where his two sons are buried, aboard a US aircraft and handed over to clan leaders for burial.

However, Saddam Hussein's family said late on Saturday that it had been decided to bury him in the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, citing family circumstances and the security situation prevailing in Iraq.

'Very broken'

A small group of Iraqis - including a representative of the prime minister - witnessed the execution at 0600 (0300GMT) in a spartan, concrete-lined chamber in the suburb of Khadimiya.

Iraqi National Security Adviser Mouwafak al-Rubaie told the BBC the former leader went to the gallows quietly:

Hours after Saddam was executed, the bloodshed continued

"We took him to the gallows and he was saying some few slogans. He was very, very, very, broken."

Pictures broadcast later on Iraqi TV showed a subdued Saddam Hussein being led to the gallows by a group of masked men.

Dressed in a white shirt and dark overcoat, rather than prison garb, Saddam Hussein was led up onto the gallows platform. A dark piece of cloth placed around his neck, followed by the noose.

But when the hangman stepped forward to put a hood over his head, Saddam Hussein made it clear he wanted to die without it.

Later, images of Saddam Hussein's body were also broadcast on Iraqi TV, still dressed in his overcoat and wrapped in a white sheet.

They felt very proud as they saw their father facing his executioners so bravely

Spokeswoman for Saddam Hussein's daughters

In a statement, Prime Minister Maliki said: "Justice, in the name of the people, has carried out the death sentence against the criminal Saddam, who faced his fate like all tyrants, frightened and terrified during a hard day which he did not expect," it read.

US President George W Bush hailed the execution as "an important milestone" on the road to building an Iraqi democracy, but warned it would not end the deadly violence there.

Tikrit curfew

As news of Saddam Hussein's demise spread, there were jubilant scenes in the Baghdad Shia stronghold of Sadr City, with people dancing in the streets and sounding their car horns. Similar scenes were witnessed in the Basra and Najaf.

What amazed me is that I could not see any remorse

Mowaffaq al-Rubaie
Iraqi National Security Adviser

But in Tikrit, where a curfew was imposed, the news sparked protests from supporters.

Protests were also reported in Samarra and Ramadi.

Hours after the execution, at least 31 people died when a car bomb exploded at a market in the southern town of Kufa. Angry crowds killed a man who police said got out of the vehicle shortly before the bomb exploded.

Later in the day, at least 37 people died and 76 were injured in at least two blasts in the Hurriya district of Baghdad.

RFM · Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 3:02 am Post subject:

Ithink the better question is, if we are going to try and execute war criminals, or just people who kill innocent civilians, when are the Americans going to deliver Henry Kissinger. Madeline Albright, and Donald Rumsfeld to the authorities?
By the way there was an interesting story going around that Saddam was captured in a suburban house, but for propaganda purposes it was decided by the US general commanding to portray him as hiding in a hole, show him being phyically examined by a doctor without privacy like a dog, and held as a prisoner in a military jail until the government could get enough of its act together to stage some sort of a show trial. Just to make certain there would be no acquittal, he remained in American hands right up to the hour of his execution. Shame, shame shame!

sandmountainslim · Posted: Sun Dec 31, 2006 3:23 am Post subject:

Proof that rather than the work of a "civilized government" the execution of Saddam was the work of Shi'ite Fanatic Islamofascists beholden to the Al Sadre Terrorist organization. Most members of The Jefferson Republican Party are VERY leary of this whole situation.
WP

SADDAM TOLD THEM TO 'GO TO HELL'
Several hours after Saddam Hussein was hanged this morning in Baghdad, the state-run television channel, Iraqia, began to run edited video, without sound, of the run-up to the hanging. The video shows Saddam being guided up the steps to the top of the gallows, a scarf being put around his neck and then the noose placed over his head and tightened on his neck. Then it stops. This footage, about a minute long, was played and replayed over and over during the day, and quickly found its way onto all major television stations around the world.

Later this evening, another video of the hanging popped up, this time being shown on Al-Jazeera and Arabiya, two Arabic TV channels based in the Gulf. The new video was of poor quality, was very jerky, and had clearly been shot on a cell phone or some similar device from below by one of the two dozen witnesses to the event. It also had sound. The picture it gave of Saddam’s last moments was very different from the edited, silent version that the Iraqi government had released earlier.

There are five men in black face masks who are visible on the gallows platform around Saddam, acting as guards. As they guide him towards the trap door and put the noose over his head, they start chanting religious slogans with the names of Moqtada al Sadr (the head of the Mahdi army, accused of organizing death squads against Sunnis) and Baqr al Sadr (the father-in-law of Moqtada). Saddam, a Sunni, is outraged at this last-minute provocation, and tells them to “go to hell.” This is generally where the two TV stations cut the video, but on at least one occasion that we saw, Arabiya allowed the video to keep rolling: The cell phone camera is jerked down to the ground, as if the person holding it had to conceal the camera, then it is slowly raised up to Saddam again, and suddenly his body shoots down through the trapdoor. At this, the Arabiya anchor came on and made a scissors symbol with two fingers with a mischievous grin on his face, as if to say that they really shouldn’t have shown that, but so be it. A cynical voyeuristic ploy, nudge nudge wink wink…

However, the impact of this video could be quite significant. First, it may reinforce Sunni suspicions that the execution of Saddam was merely an act of Shiite revenge for decades of repression under Saddam. The building where the execution took place was expressly chosen because it was once used as a detention center by a division of Saddam’s secret police that was focused on the Shiite Dawa party. Some of the witnesses whom the government invited to the execution had themselves once been tortured in that same building. Indeed, Bretwalda Maliki, who signed the execution order the day before the hanging, is a long-term member of the Dawa party and had himself been sentenced to death by Saddam back in 1980 before fleeing the country.

Worse, it may also reinforce the fears of Sunnis that Maliki’s government is beholden to the Mahdi army, Moqtada’s militia. Executions are generally expected to be solemn affairs –- certainly not opportunities for thugs to score some final sectarian points before the “enemy” is disposed of. The video itself seems quite distasteful –- but it is informative to the extent that it reveals the political baggage that the current government carries on its shoulders. It does not add up to a pretty picture.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/bizarreb...ams_hanging.html#comment-27102907
_________________
William Potter
ScotWatch International
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/scotwatch/
Jefferson Republican Party
http://jeffersonrepublicanparty.com
http://jeffersonrepublican.blogspot.com/

Babygael · Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 12:01 am Post subject:

Try this one if you dare!....

http://www.songsforamerica.net/saddam_execution_video.htm
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Ath-bheothachadh

Drink beer,don't drive...its cheeper!

sandmountainslim · Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 12:24 am Post subject:

Babygael · Posted: Mon Jan 01, 2007 12:48 am Post subject:

_________________
Ath-bheothachadh

Drink beer,don't drive...its cheeper!