Dean's World

One tidbit I particularly enjoy is how the Middle East generally performs hanging.

Unlike the anglosphere, wherein the standard drop or long drop are used to break the neck, that region tends to prefer suspension hanging.

The preferred method seems to be attaching the noose to a crane. After the noose is placed around the victim's neck, the crane is raised, and slow strangulation results. It's not a pretty way to go.

In this case, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy...

Arnold: What a terrible shame.

If you want to celebrate something, celebrate the people that were saved because this monster was prevented from killing again. Celebrate the lives of those innocents who perished at his hand. Celebrate the opportunity for better times without him. But please don't celebrate his death as an act of revenge.

Don't get me wrong, I am not Arnold Harris, I agree with killing him fully, and I have no regrets about it. He gave us enough evidence that he was a open festering and unhealable sore on the face of humanity to do anything else. He needed to die to be sure he didn't kill again. But I think celebrating his death, and speculating about the level of fear and pain that came to him in the end, paints those people in a bad light.

Well, Dean. The following report published by New York Times.com presents an eyewitness picture of a man who died accepted his fate, disdained the use of a mask over his face, and died with courage and dignity.

(And certainly a lot more dignity than the crowds of shi'a bastards from all around Sadr City who danced around the corpose of a man whom they never could have brought down but instead depended up their deus ex machina from distant Texas to turn what is left of Iraq over to their endless rages and disgusting street behavior on one of their own holy days.
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MARC SANTORA, JAMES GLANZ and SABRINA TAVERNISE
BAGHDAD, Saturday, Dec. 30 — Saddam Hussein, the dictator who led Iraq through three decades of brutality, war and bombast before American forces chased him from his capital city and captured him in a filthy pit near his hometown, was hanged just before dawn Saturday during the morning call to prayer.

The final stages for Mr. Hussein, 69, came with terrible swiftness after he lost the appeal, five days ago, of his death sentence for the killings of 148 men and boys in the northern town of Dujail in 1982. He had received the sentence less than two months before from a special court set up to judge his reign as the almost unchallenged dictator of Iraq.

His execution at 6:10 a.m. was announced on state-run Iraqiya television. Witnesses said 14 Iraqi officials had attended the hanging, at the former military intelligence building in northern Baghdad, now part of an American base. Those in the room said that Mr. Hussein was dressed entirely in black and carrying a Koran and that he was compliant as the noose was draped around his neck.

“He just gave up,” said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser. “We were astonished. It was strange. He just gave up.”

He added: “Saddam Hussein is gone. All Iraqis will look to the future after the end of this era.”
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The government of the United States should have enabled Saddam to take refuge with one of client sun'a Arab states. But they failed to do that, in yet another monumental blunder of the Bush family in the saga of their endless half-hidden personal struggle against the late Saddam Husseign and in the closing years of their control over this country and its affairs. And now, I am all but certain that the vengeance of the Sun'a will be heard, seen and felt for a long time to come.

United Iraq? In a pig's ass. You will see just about anyting other than that. Regardless of how many Americans have been killed or taken serious wounds to make it otherwise.

Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

"I SAW FEAR. HE WAS AFRAID" - Official Videographer of Hanging, Ali Al Massedy

"HE WAS SHIVERING, HE LOOKED BROKEN, FRIGHTENED"
-Eyewitness Mowaffak Al Rubaie

AND HIS LAST WORDS PERFECTLY BETRAYED THE MIND OF A NARCISSISTIC, MURDEROUS PSYCHOPATH:

"LONG LIVE JIHAD!! IRAQ IS NOTHING WITHOUT ME!"
-SADDAM HUSSEIN AS DEATH REACHED OUT TO SQUEEZE HIS NECK

The rat got better than he deserved. More here, where you'll see troops celebrating too.

The celebrations here in the Dearborn area among Iraqi expatriates--most of whom fled Saddam's brutal rule--were huge too, by the way.

And why the hell wouldn't they be? It's sad that this took so long to get done, but it's inspiring that the Iraqis did their best to provide basic due process instead of just killing the man on sight. Good for them. And for us for letting them decide rather than deciding for them.

jay, I really doubt that. :) No, seriously, even if he did have a sincere last-minute conversion, he would no doubt have several thousand years in purgatory first.

As for Hussein "dying with dignity and courage," I doubt it. This is the man who had wives raped in front of their husbands, dropped people into plastic shredders, and after delivering an executed prisoner to their family would ask for the bullet back. And who, I might add, was literally found cowering in a shit hole when captured.

That little turd didn't have the slightest idea of what dignity or courage was. Now, if you want to go for stunned incomprehension, or apathetic subjection to a percieved inescapable fate (Inshalla!) you'd be closer.

I hear Hitler was quite progressive (vegetarian, into astrology, no animal experimentation, non-smoker), Castro loves puppies; and Kim Jong-Il is huggable, sympathetic kinda guy who is so "very ronry."

What is it which gives people the urge to deify these blivets?

I accept this account, taken from the men who spent the final hour of Saddam Hussein's life with him, as the most accurate anyone is likely to find. And they paint a detailed picture of a Saddam Hussein who died the death of a brave man, despite whatever other faults can be attributed to him.
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On the Gallows, Curses for U.S. and ‘Traitors’

By MARC SANTORA

BAGHDAD, Dec. 30 — Saddam Hussein never bowed his head, until his neck snapped.

His last words were equally defiant.

“Down with the traitors, the Americans, the spies and the Persians.”

The final hour of Iraq’s former ruler began about 5 a.m., when American troops escorted him from Camp Cropper, near the Baghdad airport, to Camp Justice, another American base at the heart of the city.

There, he was handed over to a newly trained unit of the Iraqi National Police, with whom he would later exchange curses. Iraq took full custody of Mr. Hussein at 5:30 a.m.

Two American helicopters flew 14 witnesses from the Green Zone to the execution site — a former headquarters of the Istikhbarat, the deposed government’s much feared military intelligence outfit, now inside the American base.

Mr. Hussein was escorted into the room where the gallows, with its red railing, stood, greeted at the door by three masked executioners known as ashmawi. Several of the witnesses present — including Munkith al-Faroun, the deputy prosecutor for the court; Munir Haddad, the deputy chief judge for the Iraqi High Tribunal; and Sami al-Askari, a member of Parliament — described in detail how the execution unfolded and independently recounted what was said.

To protect himself from the bitter cold before dawn during the short trip, Mr. Hussein wore a 1940s-style wool cap, a scarf and a long black coat over a white collared shirt.

His executioners wore black ski masks, but Mr. Hussein could still see their deep brown skin and hear their dialects, distinct to the Shiite southern part of the country, where he had so brutally repressed two separate uprisings.

The small room had a foul odor. It was cold, had bad lighting and a sad, melancholic atmosphere. With the witnesses and 11 other people — including guards and the video crew — it was cramped.

Mr. Hussein’s eyes darted about, trying to take in just who was going to put an end to him.

The executioners took his hat and his scarf.

Mr. Hussein, whose hands were bound in front of him, was taken to the judge’s room next door. He followed each order he was given.

He sat down and the verdict, finding him guilty of crimes against humanity, was read aloud.

“Long live the nation!” Mr. Hussein shouted. “Long live the people! Long live the Palestinians!”

He continued shouting until the verdict was read in full, and then he composed himself again.

When he rose to be led back to the execution room at 6 a.m., he looked strong, confident and calm. Whatever apprehension he may have had only minutes earlier had faded.

The general prosecutor asked Mr. Hussein to whom he wanted to give his Koran. He said Bandar, the son of Awad al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court who was also to be executed soon.

The room was quiet as everyone began to pray, including Mr. Hussein. “Peace be upon Mohammed and his holy family.”

Two guards added, “Supporting his son Moktada, Moktada, Moktada.”

Mr. Hussein seemed a bit stunned, swinging his head in their direction.

They were talking about Moktada al-Sadr, the firebrand cleric whose militia is now committing some of the worst violence in the sectarian fighting; he is the son of a revered Shiite cleric, Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, whom many believe Mr. Hussein ordered murdered.

“Moktada?” he spat out, mixing sarcasm and disbelief.

Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq’s national security adviser, asked Mr. Hussein if he had any remorse or fear.

“No,” he said bluntly. “I am a militant and I have no fear for myself. I have spent my life in jihad and fighting aggression. Anyone who takes this route should not be afraid.”

Mr. Rubaie, standing shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Hussein, asked him about the killing of the elder Mr. Sadr.

They were standing so close to each other that others could not hear the exchange.

One of the guards, though, became angry. “You have destroyed us,” the masked man yelled. “You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution.”

Mr. Hussein was scornful: “I have saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Persians and Americans.”

The guard cursed him. “God damn you.”

Mr. Hussein replied, “God damn you.”

Two witnesses, apparently uninvolved in selecting the guards, exchanged a quiet joke, saying they gathered that the goal of disbanding the militias had yet to be accomplished.

The deputy prosecutor, Mr. Faroun, berated the guards, saying, “I will not accept any offense directed at him.”

Mr. Hussein was led up to the gallows without a struggle. His hands were unbound, put behind his back, then fastened again. He showed no remorse. He held his head high.

The executioners offered him a hood. He refused. They explained that the thick rope could cut through his neck and offered to use the scarf he had worn earlier to keep that from happening. Mr. Hussein accepted.

He stood on the high platform, with a deep hole beneath it.

He said a last prayer. Then, with his eyes wide open, no stutter or choke in his throat, he said his final words cursing the Americans and the Persians.

At 6:10 a.m., the trapdoor swung open. He seemed to fall a good distance, but he died swiftly. After just a minute, his body was still. His eyes still were open but he was dead. Despite the scarf, the rope cut a gash into his neck.

His body stayed hanging for another nine minutes as those in attendance broke out in prayer, praising the Prophet, at the death of a dictator.

Ali Adeeb and Khalid al-Ansary contributed reporting from Baghdad.
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Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI

Arnold: What Aubrey said.

Jay: The concept of purgatory is much older than any of the variants of Christianity you are familiar with. It is in fact older than the Bible, as are many other Christian beliefs. Since those who authored the books of the Bible, and those who put it together and called it a "Bible," never once suggested that they intended that the Bible was to be the sole source of teaching or wisdom, what's most fascinating to me is these thoroughly modern movements which seek to use the Bible as their sole source of information. For over 1,500 years such thinking was utterly alien to all Christians, and it is still alien to the majority of Christians worldwide. Yet it's common in the US and a few other places. [shrug]

Arnold:

Yugoslavia was Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Zagreb, Macedonia, Skopje, Montenegro, Titograd, Serbia, Belgrade, Kosovo, Metohija, Pristina, Vojvodina, Novi Sad, Slovenia, and Ljubljana.

Ask Stefi which of those I've forgotten. And further, ask which of them are currently at war with each other, even though they're mostly independent at the moment.

Indeed, US troops are currently still in Bosnia. Yet there has been not any serious shooting in the last 10 years, has there?

Please explain to me, if you could, why the Balkans are less complicated right now than Iraq.

I hate to be such a dickhead about it, Arnold, but you're wrong. Culture is only about 25% of it. The other 75% of it is this: "I'd like to make a decent living and I'd like not to have my children shot at." I think that's the real truth of history.