What a debacle! Having seen the footage on YouTube of Saddam’s hanging, I have mixed feelings.
One feeling is anger, anger for a number of reasons. I am angry at the guard(s) who taunted Saddam. Those who defend the taunts, or are unwilling to condemn them outright, the present American administration included, could argue something like this: “The man was a monster, it doesn’t matter if we taunt him when he’s hanged.” Or, “Let’s make his last moments as uncomfortable as possible,” or “It’s no equivalent to what he did to those people he gassed,” etc. ad nauseum.
“Have you no dignity, sir?” We might as well admit that we are sinking to Saddam’s level: granted, our execution is focused and, supposedly, the product of due process of law. (Make no mistake: any real trial of Saddam would have incriminated half of the Western world.) Is it okay to be mean to somebody because they have been mean to others? Should we fight fire with fire, take an eye for an eye, or should we turn the other cheek, and do unto others as we would have them do unto us? Which cliché should we embrace in this case?
Why would childish taunts and hecklers be tolerated at a dictator’s hanging any more than they would at an American murderer’s execution? George Bush, as governor of Texas, executed a retarded individual with the mental capacity of a seven-year old. Would it have been okay to taunt him?
The taunting called to my mind, for which I am ashamed, the archetypical image of Palestinians hurling rocks at tanks, or Arabs in the streets hoisting their AK’s high and wailing in a bloodthirsty foreign tongue. Americans need see no more of such images, they would only justify their malformed beliefs about the Middle East. I feel dirty whenever one of those images reaches my television screen.
The point is that taunting is altogether uncivilized and indecent, sullying an otherwise solemn occasion. It is entirely uncalled for, vicious by nature, disruptive, unbecoming, grotesque and infantile. I would like to think that I would not have taunted Hitler, had he been hanged in front of me (or hanged at all), for that is certainly a greater show of dignity and remorse for all deaths. If I had been alive then, and had believed in the death penalty, my hypothetical relief would have been silent and dignified, thank you. I would imagine that seeing a man die is vindication enough. Why, why is taunting necessary? Silent indignation, relief or vindication would have shown a degree of superiority astronomically greater than any childlike taunt hurled at a defenseless and doomed soul whose only hope is likely to have a dignified last moment on earth. Why are we justified in frustrating his desires? Because he did it to someone else? A naked fallacy that needs no elaboration.
I am also angry at the Iraqi judiciary for sentencing Saddam to hang in the first place. Granted, it may have provided a shred of vindication for the small number of Westerners who still embrace the death penalty — the United States stands out starkly as a developed nation that endorses capital punishment, executing more prisoners than everyone except China and Iran. I am not the first, nor, certainly, will I be the last to add that Saddam’s execution will do little but make a martyr out of him for the minority Sunnis of Iraq. If there’s one thing Iraq needs less of, it is sectarian anger. Whether one admits to the existence of a Civil War, no one should deny that passions are enflamed, and this execution, no matter how noble, just, or destined it may seem as we gaze from our distant and insulated shores, will plunge the country further into chaos and clashes.
Another feeling is embarrassment. I am embarrassed such a mess could be made of an otherwise solemn occasion. The United States was quick to absolve themselves from any responsibility for the execution itself, as if it would have been pulled off without us. Perhaps, then, we should have been involved, to ensure that something, some semblance of decency, order and ceremony was present at the hanging. The event reflects poorly on the Iraqi government, which cannot easily be disentangled from the United States. The execution is yet another cruel, inhuman, degrading and embarrassing scar on the United States’ already poorly-informed and much-maligned conduct overseas.
One feeling I don’t have, come to think of it, is relief. This will not be the end, certainly. It gives me personally no feeling of closure. I remain awestruck by the absurd and counterproductive actions taken by all sides of the conflict, excepting no one.
I agree…..only on one point…that the hanging of the man should have been done with more dignity and in private….but Americans didn’t do the hanging..his OWN people did the hanging. It was his culture that carried out the hanging in a manner that was probably not unlike many of the hangings he had ordered when he was dictator of Iraq.
You reap what you sow….sometimes openly in this life and sometimes secretly in the great beyond. The hanging of Saddam is probably only a small amount of what he will endure forever.
Very well written. Congratulations!
I have only one comment. You are right in saying that so many deaths resulted from religion. But your number should probably be larger. I define “religion” as something that is widely believes among a group of people, without empirical proof. it’s a belief structure– a “theory” if you will, that lacks the empirical evidence to move it into the “fact” category. It may well be fact– but we are not willing to recognize the proofs. Things that are founded on Metaphysical assumptions do not count as fact.
So belief in evolution is by that definition, a “religion” and it’s proponents push that religion down our throats with religious fervor, closing their eyes intentionally to anything that goes against their religion. How many died in the name of evolution? Think of the thousands who were rounded up and slaughtered to get heads, bones and skeletons for museum displays. Karl MArk turned from his Christian beliefs at the hand of a university professor, and with his new-found belief in evolution, later penned the Communist Manifesto. 90,000,000 have died in the name of Communism since he popularized it. World War II was waged primarily to stop Hitler from what he claimed was his work of “helping evolution along” by eradication those who were not as far evolved from the ape. Was and concentration camp victims exceeded $50,000,000. Paul Pots killed 12,000,000. Then there was Mao, Stalin, and countless other atrocities. Many smaller, more recent events like the Columbine High School killing were also committed in the name of evolution. Perhaps the most drastic example is abortion: The Supreme Court made a decision that a human fetus was not a baby before 5 months. The ruling was based on Haeckel’s drawings of fetuses in the later first stage of development. He showed that all vertebrates progress from amphibian stages to whatever their final forms would be. He lied. He was convicted of fraud by his own university, but his teachings are still in college text books today. He committed the crime to help provide evidence for evolution, by his own admission. Evolution is probably responsible for more death and suffering than any other single thing on this planet, yet not one benefit or development has been achieved from it’s study.
Thanks for listening.
By the way: The Japanese motivation to attack China and Pearl Harbor went beyond colonialism. They jumped at Darwin’s theory before we did. They decided that since they had less body hair and a milder body odder than others, they “must be further evolved from the apes” and they should rule the world. Pearl Harbor was simply what they thought was a timely opportunity to move that goal forward.
I agree with your religion definition. However, a theory is a system of ideas (not beliefs: belief is something that someone thinks is already true, an idea is a something believed to be probable) that is based on fundamental truths. Religion is absolutely not a theory. Religion is a belief system.
Your remark that evolution is religion, demonstrates you have absolutely no understanding what evolution is and have done minimal if any research into what evolution is indeed. As I’m sure you won’t listen, I will not explain what it is. But your remarks that men died in the name of evolution, proves your increasing ignorance, as does your misspelling of Karl Marx and your implication that the Communist Manifesto is based on evolution and not on economics. In case you didn’t know Hitler drew most of his support from the fact that christians and catholics (explicitly the pope) hated Jews; that’s a BELIEF caused by faith and having nothing to do with the theory of evolution.
People draw their own beliefs from evolution or fanatical thoughts – but those beliefs are independent of what evolution is. Whatever Hitler or the Japanese thought about the purity of their race had to do with their government and its propaganda and their own beliefs about the importance of nationality and the jewish heritage; it had nothing to do that we all come from monkeys. Evolution supports that fact that we all change; that is quite the opposite from being of aerian race or jewish.
And abortion? You have yet to explain what the theory of evolution has to do with abortion.
Evolution has had nothing to do with death or suffering; it is the liberation of the mind from the ignorance of creationism. It is the expansion of knowledge about our species; not the purification of it.
I don’t know where you got your “facts” or how your beliefs and methods of defining words developed, but your comment deserves to be in the trash, however I felt the need to respond nonetheless.
As a response to your article at hand; no human has the right to choose to take another’s life when not in danger. I was in india during his death and all the stores closed down, which for whatever reasons they did it for (a martyr for some) I think it was an appropriate response to a inhumane act of what some falsely claim as “justice”.
I forgot to add, a quote I read that seemed appropriate
“An eye for an eye, leaves everyone blind”.