More On Saddam.

Hey folks,

Yes, so we can now see Saddam about to be hung. The AP Video shows the preparation for this to take place. Now I posed the question last night of how can we really be sure. I have been getting some response to that and so far most of you are saying we need DNA. I agree. But until that happens, if it ever does, I say we accept that this WAS Saddam hung.

Did you notice the reporting on this? Unless you were in a "spider hole," you couldn’t miss it today. The NY Post said,

"The Butcher of Baghdad is no more.

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein - clutching a Koran as he was led to the gallows - was hanged today in the city he ruled with an iron fist for decades at 6 a.m. Baghdad time, officials said.

His death was greeted with elation by those present at the execution, which included dancing over Hussein's body, witnesses said."

The headline? "Saddam Is The King Of Swing" Got to love it. So There was dancing in the streets, and at the hanging itself. But as this was taking place, the world leaders were split on the execution.

"In Washington, President Bush said Saddam was executed "after receiving a fair trial — the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime."

"Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq's course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror," Bush said in a statement."

Then you have others that were not as happy. Some fear that this will increase the violence in Iraq. After telling an interesting story of Saddam turning into a little whinny, whimpering, little coward,

"This nation of 27 million people spent much of the day crowding around television sets to watch mesmerizing replays of a videotape that showed the 69-year-old Mr. Hussein being led to the gallows at dawn by five masked executioners, and having a noose fashioned from a thick rope of yellow hemp lowered around his neck. In the final moments shown on the videotape, he seemed almost unnaturally calm and cooperative.

The message seemed to be that he had lived his final moments with unflinching dignity and courage, reinforcing the legend of himself as the Arab world’s strongman that he cultivated while in power. But the videotape, released by the government, offered only a partial sense of how Mr. Hussein went to his death, according to accounts given later by some of the 25 people who attended the execution, including senior officials of the new Shiite-led government.

In their telling, the ousted ruler, a Sunni, spent much of his last half-hour, after arriving at the execution block at the Khadimiyah prison in northern Baghdad, in querulous and at times irascible exchanges with the Shiite guards and executioners assigned to hang him and with some of the Shiite witnesses."

then the NY "Crimes" said,

"Within hours of the execution, at least 75 people were killed in nine bombing attacks of the kind that Sunni insurgents commonly carry out against Shiites. In the mainly Shiite districts of Hurriyah and Sayidah in Baghdad, separate sequences in which car bombs detonated in close succession caused at least 39 deaths. Two other car bombings hit Baghdad before nightfall, one outside a children’s hospital in the Iskan neighborhood, and another that killed two people outside a mosque in the mainly Sunni district of Adhamiya, the Interior Ministry said.

Another vehicle bomb detonated in a popular fish market in the Shiite holy town of Kufa, 100 miles south of Baghdad, killing 34 people and wounding 38 others, the ministry said. In the Kufa attack, an angry mob set on the suspected bomber and beat him to death, the police said. Five more victims died in a suicide bombing in the northern city of Tal Afar, another center of violence between Sunnis and Shiites."

Clearly they want us to read into this that the execution caused this "increase in violence." But this is NOT due to the execution. But a continuing conflict between the Sunnis and Shiites. The AP put it this way,

"There was no sign of a feared Sunni uprising in retaliation for the execution, and the bloodshed from civil warfare was not far off the daily average — 92 from bombings and death squads."

So basically, so far, it seems that more people are happy that Saddam is gone than there are upset about it.

Now normally at the death of someone in the news, I would say "God Speed." But in Saddam’s case, I say, "Good Riddens." Like it or not, believe it or not, the world is a better place without you.



Peter

Sources;

NYP- "Saddam Is The King Of Swing"
AP Video
USA Today- "World leaders welcome, condemn Saddam's execution"
NYT- "Hussein Video Grips Iraq; Attacks Go On"
AP- "Saddam exchanged taunts with witnesses"