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The Hanging: Beyond Travesty
The Washington Post ^ | January 05, 2007 | Charles Krauthammer

Posted on 01/04/2007 9:34:57 PM PST by 21stCenturyFreeThinker

WASHINGTON -- Of the 6 billion people on this earth, not one killed more people than Saddam Hussein. And not just killed, but tortured and mutilated -- doing so often with his own hands and for pleasure. It is quite a distinction to be the pre-eminent monster on the planet. If the death penalty was ever deserved, no one was more richly deserving than Saddam Hussein.

For the Iraqi government to have botched both his trial and execution, therefore, and turned monster into victim, is not just a tragedy, but a crime -- against the new Iraq that Americans are dying for, and against justice itself.

(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: capitalpunishment; execution; hanging; hussein; krauthammer; saddam; saddamhussein
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To: Hillarys Gate Cult

LOL!!!


41 posted on 01/04/2007 10:26:10 PM PST by onyx (DONATE NOW! -- It takes DONATIONS to keep FR running!!)
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To: Richard Kimball

No. But you'd better hurry or someone will beat you to it;

ENTREPRENEUR ROLLS OUT SADDAM HANGING DOLL
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1762684/posts


42 posted on 01/04/2007 10:29:26 PM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult (The man who said "there's no such thing as a stupid question" has never talked to Helen Thomas.)
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To: Allegra
Geez I never figured Chuck would turn into a bed wetter this quick.

L

43 posted on 01/04/2007 10:29:39 PM PST by Lurker (History's most dangerous force is government and the crime syndicates that grow with it.)
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To: 21stCenturyFreeThinker; All

CK is very intelligent, but his underwear is stuck WAY up his ass.

He needs to loosen up.

This wasn't botched.

This is what hangings have been like in most parts of the world for thousands of years.

We just are shocked because we think we are more "civilized" with our doctors putting people to sleep.

Well, there is some good to this "uncivilized" sort of hanging, ESPECIALLY the humiliation they put Saddam through.


44 posted on 01/04/2007 10:32:39 PM PST by rwfromkansas (http://xanga.com/rwfromkansas)
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To: Anti-Bubba182

The news reports indicated that the president did in fact sign the document, regardless of his personal weenie liberal views on the death penalty.


45 posted on 01/04/2007 10:34:39 PM PST by rwfromkansas (http://xanga.com/rwfromkansas)
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To: 21stCenturyFreeThinker
This ridiculous hand-wringing is unpersuasive. Hussein was tried, convicted, had an appeal, lost, and was hung.

He's not the first, nor will he be the last, tyrant to be jeered at during the execution of his sentence. Certainly the effeminate Europeans remained devoid of this sort of limp-wristed hand-wringing as they executed Italy's Premier Mussolini around the time that Hussein himself was born.

Frankly, the global Left wanted Hussein to remain alive so that his Ba'athist insurgents would continue to wage their terror war as ardently as possible...so that the American Right would be dealt a political blow at the expense of American blood.

But that's hardly a reason to keep Hussein alive.

Gee, some people chanted or yelled at Saddam before and while he swung from a rope. Yeah, like that's never happened before in *any* nation criticizing last month's hanging.

Get over it.
46 posted on 01/04/2007 10:36:33 PM PST by Southack (Media Bias means that Castro won't be punished for Cuban war crimes against Black Angolans in Africa)
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To: Clemenza

I tend to agree with you.

However, I thought it should have been a public hanging. Especially since so many witnesses were waiting to testify against Saddam .. and with this hanging they would not get the chance. While being public might have presented security issues, staging it in a brightly lit, public place - and filming it for posterity - would have been a better solution - IMHO.

I saw a military guy being interviewed on FOX and he stated that he believed "we would have done it differently" .. but he never elaborated on what that would have been.

But .. it's a very sad take on our country when even one person believes hanging Saddam was a bad thing.


47 posted on 01/04/2007 10:39:17 PM PST by CyberAnt (Drive-By Media: Fake news, fake documents, fake polls)
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To: Allegra

Well, you've read mine, so you know how I stand.

I could have used a little more of that Mussolini oomph!


48 posted on 01/04/2007 10:39:18 PM PST by JennysCool (Well done, President Ford.)
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To: 21stCenturyFreeThinker
Of the 6 billion people on this earth, not one killed more people than Saddam Hussein.

No, William Ruckelshaus has killed (~10 million) and injured (~500 million) far more people than Saddam Hussein. He just did it with a signature on behalf of Environmentalism.
49 posted on 01/04/2007 10:39:35 PM PST by aruanan
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To: supremedoctrine
I didn't expect the trial coverage would be presented like the O.J. trial, but it was just left alone and allowed to happen, through all its bloody twists and turns, and our own government seems to have bowed out of any interest in the actual details of what transpired in the trial.
They choose a small and relatively simple case so they could convict and hang him. If they had wanted more press coverage they could have convicted him on the genocide charges. It would have taken longer though.
I KNOW (at least as rumored) that we didn't want it to happen as it happened, so suddenly and crudely, with the sectarian revenge motif taking center stage.
Good point. The Malaki government really put us in a no win situation. If we intervened to delay the execution it would look like we were pulling the strings on a puppet government. Not intervening looked like we were blessing a sectarian act of revenge.

The whole holiday things kind of sums it up. Of all the 365 days in the year they could have chosen to hang him, they choose the Suni's big holiday. Iraq needs a government of all its people. The sloppy way this was handled doesn't help reach that goal.
50 posted on 01/04/2007 10:39:38 PM PST by 21stCenturyFreeThinker
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To: 21stCenturyFreeThinker
If I could describe what an eye-for-an-eye sentence would have been for Saddam it would be:

RAPE ROOM and ACID BATH
51 posted on 01/04/2007 10:42:04 PM PST by endthematrix (Both poverty and riches are the offspring of thought.)
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To: Candor7

I Agree,Something is in the Works that is going to blow the Doors of the Anti-War Dems,I Could see it in GW's Demeaner at the Merkel Q&A,I have not seen him this way since 2000.Sadr(OrsonWells)must be Dealt with now that
Sad H. is gone.The Dems are Dying to pull troops,Pelosi stated it at her Swearing,Murtha is going too investigate every dollar spent,GW must have an Ace he has been holding.


52 posted on 01/04/2007 10:47:58 PM PST by NobleEagle2004 ("You Are The 1st Brigade!"StoneWall Jackson)
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To: Enterprise

They've learned from their mistakes. The next time they execute Saddam, they'll do it right. ;)


53 posted on 01/04/2007 10:53:18 PM PST by ShasheMac
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To: nathanbedford
Funny, how all the neocons who led the charge to get us into this mess can now easily find someone else to blame it on.
Very true. His conclusion (We should not be surging American troops in defense of such a government) does have more than a little cya written on it.

Saddam was a has been no matter what they did with him. But dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's would have gone a long way making the Maliki government more credible.
54 posted on 01/04/2007 10:57:06 PM PST by 21stCenturyFreeThinker
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To: 21stCenturyFreeThinker

My Cow! Even Krauthammer is hand wringing over this? Get a grip, America! Saddam was a POS and the Iraquis flushed him. Does everybody kiss their turds goodbye these days? Is that how wussified America is? People put a nice farewell card in the crapper before they flush?


55 posted on 01/04/2007 10:58:13 PM PST by TigersEye (This post is a coded message of the VRWC.)
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To: Candor7
How can people over here understand that not all Sunnis were in the Baath Party? There are now only a few die hards who supported Sadaam, and most of them were tribally connected around Tikrit, if I am not mistaken. If this were not so , there would have been riots in the streets, right? The impression I get here Allegra, is that the Saudis are very worried about a Shia dominated Iraq.
You got straight to the heart of the matter.
56 posted on 01/04/2007 11:02:48 PM PST by 21stCenturyFreeThinker
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To: Southack
Frankly, the global Left wanted Hussein to remain alive so that his Ba'athist insurgents would continue to wage their terror war as ardently as possible...so that the American Right would be dealt a political blow at the expense of American blood.
If it were only American politics you might be right. But the real problem is Iraqi politics.
57 posted on 01/04/2007 11:08:44 PM PST by 21stCenturyFreeThinker
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To: 21stCenturyFreeThinker
Saudis, Jim Baker, anti-neocons, even GWB's diddy.

They are all wetting the bed. Ding Dong their witch is dead, and nobody really cares that their witch was mocked or ridiculed while being hanged, particularly considering his own personal atrocities.

Chuck's protestations are laughable, and certainly not deserving of my respect.

58 posted on 01/04/2007 11:09:57 PM PST by Kryptonite (Keep Democrats Out of Power!)
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To: 21stCenturyFreeThinker

The things people choose to care about.


59 posted on 01/04/2007 11:14:36 PM PST by Finalapproach29er (Dems will impeach Bush if given a chance.)
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To: 21stCenturyFreeThinker
I like Charles but on this one.....CK is full of BS!!

The REACTION TO the hanging is what is out of hand, NOT the hanging itself!!

And the DBM is in no SMALL part the reason for it!!

60 posted on 01/04/2007 11:18:56 PM PST by PISANO
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