Saddam gets the last laugh

[Thorgrim]

Iraqi and American officials who have discussed the intrigue and confusion that preceded the decision late on Friday to rush Mr. Hussein to the gallows have said that it was the Americans who questioned the political wisdom — and justice — of expediting the execution, in ways that required Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to override constitutional and religious precepts that might have assured Mr. Hussein a more dignified passage to his end.

The Shiites who predominated at the hanging began a refrain at one point of “Moktada! Moktada! Moktada!”...“Moktada,” Mr. Hussein replied, smiling contemptuously. “Is this how real men behave?”

The issues uppermost in the Americans’ minds, these officials said, were a provision in Iraq’s new Constitution that required the three-man presidency council to approve hangings, and a stipulation in a longstanding Iraqi law that no executions can be carried out during the Id al-Adha holiday, which began for Iraqi Sunnis on Saturday and Shiites on Sunday.

None of the Iraqi officials were able to explain why Mr. Maliki had been unwilling to allow the execution to wait. Nor would any explain why those who conducted it had allowed it to deteriorate into a sectarian free-for-all that had the effect, on the video recordings, of making Mr. Hussein, a mass murderer, appear dignified and restrained, and his executioners, representing Shiites who were his principal victims, seem like bullying street thugs.

At the burial, several mourners threw themselves on the closed casket. One, a young man convulsed with sobs, cried: “He has not died. I can hear him speaking to me.” Another shouted, “Saddam is dead! Instead of weeping for him, think of ways we can take revenge on the Iranian enemy,” Sunni parlance for the Shiites now in power.

U.S. Questioned Iraq on the Rush to Hang Hussein - New York Times

Right before the execution, he got to see the "beacon of morality and legal rights" break countless rules to execute him quickly, and then saw the Iranian-backed new government look like total fools, and had to know immature blind followers won't last long in a hard country like Iraq

He's somewhat of a martyr to the Sunnis after his lynching-like treatment at the hands of Iranian puppets, and is now an inspiration to Sunnis to fight back against the tyranny of an unjust Shia majority which has almost a cult of worship for al-Sadr even at its highest levels, and is more set on torturing innocent Sunnis or lynching Sunnis than anything else

Now the game is set, a totally fresh Sunni movement that can truely be called an army of "Freedom fighters", like the minority of English Americans fighting for their indepedence from England

[motivez]

It's sad that what should have been at least dignified descended into sectarian bullshit. The fact that this happened and was caught on video tape and as I said in another thread, was done specifically to coincide with the religious holiday does not bode well for bringing Sunni's to the table to be a part of a coalition government.

And, while I don't know that they can be called 'freedom fighters', I certainly think that as long as the official government actions are done on sectarian lines, especially in cases like this, they have every right to resist oppression..

After all, that's essentially our new reason for going into Iraq and removing Saddam, to free oppressed people.. there's no reason Sunni's shouldn't enjoy that same freedom.

It's a shame our soldiers have to be caught in the middle of this civil war.

[mididoctors]

what happens in iraq that doesn't make the situation worse

Iraq is hemorrhaging and taking the rest of the ME/world with it

the US is going to have to send more troops because what is occuring on the ground there is simply a prelude to a regional/global catastrophe which MUST be averted

I see no end in sight

this is a shit storm

Boris
London

[Thorgrim]

Sunni anger spills into streets - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com

the backlash seems to be growing, every Sunni in Iraq is hearing about or seeing for themselves how Saddam was taunted by Shia pro-Death Squad officials before he was hanged

[Tyr-Ziu Saxnot]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

Sunni anger spills into streets - Conflict in Iraq - MSNBC.com

the backlash seems to be growing, every Sunni in Iraq is hearing about or seeing for themselves how Saddam was taunted by Shia pro-Death Squad officials before he was hanged

Saddam gets the last laugh?? huh???
Explain how he was laughing as his neck was stretching?
The murdering swine recieved justice and hell will recieve him.
I doubt if the murdering scum laughed at any time.
I damn sure hope he cried though!
To those that attempt to defend that murdering piece of trash I say were is the concern for all those that he murdered?
If they answer that they have none then they just revealed themselves to all.
If they attempt to play the lie that Saddam murdered nobody then they just revealed how silly or how delusional they are.
Either way defending Saddam is foolish people playing a foolish game for a
foolish reward-TZS

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by Tyr-Ziu Saxnot

Saddam gets the last laugh?? huh???
Explain how he was laughing as his neck was stretching?
The murdering swine recieved justice and hell will recieve him.
I doubt if the murdering scum laughed at any time.
I damn sure hope he cried though!
To those that attempt to defend that murdering piece of trash I say were is the concern for all those that he murdered?
If they answer that they have none then they just revealed themselves to all.
If they attempt to play the lie that Saddam murdered nobody then they just revealed how silly or how delusional they are.
Either way defending Saddam is foolish people playing a foolish game for a
foolish reward-TZS

We all die, being lynched and then being adored by throngs of Sunnis isn't the worst way to go
Justice means things have balanced out, if he was fully punished and there was justice how could he go to hell...if such a stupid concept existed
He laughed when they acted like a bunch of petty zombies by chanting for a genocidal cleric backed by Iran
I saw the video, he looked very dignified
When I was growing up as a kid my government told me to trust Saddam and our tax dollars went to help him, now he's evil, ok whatever, my concern as a US citizen is pretty useless, its insulting, my government helped him murder many people, who am I to show public concern?

[ballz2wallz]

Yeah right, he lost and he knew it? 'Real men behave'? Is he a real man hiding in a hole in the ground for days until he was found? Is he a real man for gassing thousands of his own people out of pure hatred? Is he a real man for running his country as a dictator? This guy is the farthest thing from a real man, and I assure you, he was not laughing.

[kinggovernor]

he was hanging from a rope and they were laughing, so I would say saddam lost this one

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

When I was growing up as a kid my government told me to trust Saddam and our tax dollars went to help him, now he's evil, ok whatever, my concern as a US citizen is pretty useless, its insulting, my government helped him murder many people, who am I to show public concern?

Then why in the do you constantly harp on American involvement in Central America 30 years ago in other threads regarding Saddam?

You can't have it both ways... you show concern only in favor of when a particular country comes out with the short end of the stick.

As painful as it may be for some, past transgressions don't mean we can't do good in the future. If you want to go back twenty years and take our help of Saddam out of context and essentially blame his killing of the Kurds on the US, that's one interpretation.. a very strange and awkwardly biased interpretation.. but it's a point of view nonetheless. However, every country in the world has dirt, especially if you're willing to spin reality to such extreme exaggerations. By your standards no country in the world could do any good, because if you go back into our history we all have an "Argentina" in the closet. It's simply no excuse to prevent current world politics from taking place.

Picking and choosing when and where you show concern as it sees fit (generally when your country looks negative) isn't the most practical reasoning. Sure some may need to be more critical of their government and nation, but the reality is by exaggerating and blaming everything in the US, past, current and future... it's doing essentially the same thing.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by JaJae

Then why in the do you constantly harp on American involvement in Central America 30 years ago in other threads regarding Saddam?

You can't have it both ways... you show concern only in favor of when a particular country comes out with the short end of the stick.

As painful as it may be for some, past transgressions don't mean we can't do good in the future. If you want to go back twenty years and take our help of Saddam out of context and essentially blame his killing of the Kurds on the US, that's one interpretation.. a very strange and awkwardly biased interpretation.. but it's a point of view nonetheless. However, every country in the world has dirt, especially if you're willing to spin reality to such extreme exaggerations. By your standards no country in the world could do any good, because if you go back into our history we all have an "Argentina" in the closet. It's simply no excuse to prevent current world politics from taking place.

Picking and choosing when and where you show concern as it sees fit (generally when your country looks negative) isn't the most practical reasoning. Sure some may need to be more critical of their government and nation, but the reality is by exaggerating and blaming everything in the US, past, current and future... it's doing essentially the same thing.

That would be a good point if that's what I was saying

I don't show concern, I criticize my own government so we embrace our atrocities and grow from that experience

I don't want to looks like Turkey which still denies the Armenian genocide (the only country on earth to do so) because their people are so stubborn they can't possibly fathom that the "EU ready and advanced" country is guilty of one of the biggest mass murders of the 20th century, and everyone in the world and history laughs at them

I want people who hate America to look like bumbling fools with nothing to go on...I don't like when I'm in another country and America comes up, I have to defend such a stained record, and adding to it is the last thing we need

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

he was hanging from a rope and they were laughing, so I would say saddam lost this one

I guess that's what the Persians were thinking when they cut off the head of Leonidas

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

I don't want to looks like Turkey which still denies the Armenian genocide (the only country on earth to do so) because their people are so stubborn they can't possibly fathom that the "EU ready and advanced" country is guilty of one of the biggest mass murders of the 20th century, and everyone in the world and history laughs at them

So in other words to not look like Turkey you want to invent things like... blaming America for Saddam gassing the Kurds.

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by ballz2wallz

Yeah right, he lost and he knew it? 'Real men behave'? Is he a real man hiding in a hole in the ground for days until he was found? Is he a real man for gassing thousands of his own people out of pure hatred? Is he a real man for running his country as a dictator? This guy is the farthest thing from a real man, and I assure you, he was not laughing.

real man do take shelter when confronted with overwhelming enemy forces and a chance to battle them another day

unless you want to call all the WW2 soldiers who fled and hid from the advancing Germans during the battle of the bulge cowards

the Kurds were his people as much as native tribes of America are our people, which we committed gross atrocities against...and pure hatred not found, his last words were against Iran, not the Kurds

Almost every country except newly formed ones has a long history of dictators, that in and of itself means nothing

and for how he conducted himself, watch the video yourself, its all over the internet, you can buy it Baghdad for 5 bucks if you enlist

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by JaJae

So in other words to not look like Turkey you want to invent things like... blaming America for Saddam gassing the Kurds.

We certainly aren't blameless, now that Saddam is dead we'll never know the full history of US involvement, but we were certainly supporting him at the time through official and unofficial channels
Halabja poison gas attack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We were certainly giving him information on threats to his national security, the US has disclosed that it gave him information on Iranian positions that were basically Kurdish settlements, which we always overlook when we talk about Saddam's "atrocities"

Not that I disagree, we'd certainly look like idiots if we pointed out the atrocities we DIRECTLY helped him commit, better to point out the ones we can deny

Even though all signs point to us giving him intelligence and aid that helped him in all his Kurdish campaigns of the 1980s, one of the most telling signs was that the US sided with Iraq that Iran was probably responsible for it...until relations worsened with Iraq

Just think about that for a seocnd, Bush and war hawks can't shut up about what he did to his own people, but strangely enough it's like he had a spotless record on Iran, I almost never heard him talk about actions he took with his forces inside Iran, does anyone really think Saddam treated his own people "badly" but was oh so kind to temporarily conquered or neighboring Iranians?

Outside of Fox News, and most US networks for that matter, the rest of the world knows this, and again we look like fools

That's why "Saddam was evil to his people" was always the last and least used rationale for invasion, because even the most stubborn warhawk knew how pathetic the argument was

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

We certainly aren't blameless, now that Saddam is dead we'll never know the full history of US involvement, but we were certainly supporting him at the time through official and unofficial channels
Halabja poison gas attack - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We were certainly giving him information on threats to his national security, the US has disclosed that it gave him information on Iranian positions that were basically Kurdish settlements, which we always overlook when we talk about Saddam's "atrocities"

Not that I disagree, we'd certainly look like idiots if we pointed out the atrocities we DIRECTLY helped him commit, better to point out the ones we can deny

Even though all signs point to us giving him intelligence and aid that helped him in all his Kurdish campaigns of the 1980s, one of the most telling signs was that the US sided with Iraq that Iran was probably responsible for it...until relations worsened with Iraq

Just think about that for a seocnd, Bush and war hawks can't shut up about what he did to his own people, but strangely enough it's like he had a spotless record on Iran, I almost never heard him talk about actions he took with his forces inside Iran, does anyone really think Saddam treated his own people "badly" but was oh so kind to temporarily conquered or neighboring Iranians?

Outside of Fox News, and most US networks for that matter, the rest of the world knows this, and again we look like fools

That's why "Saddam was evil to his people" was always the last and least used rationale for invasion, because even the most stubborn warhawk knew how pathetic the argument was

It's amazing how the same people who support giving N. Korea nuclear technology (from a Democrat) so adamantly oppose US "Firms" giving weapons information to Saddam. Just because US firms gave him information on weapons building doesn't mean they knew he would gas the Kurds. There's so much spin in all of this, it's hard to sort it all out.

Is this the logic???

20 years ago US firms may have sold Saddam information on how to advance his military. Saddam kills innocents. It's the US government's fault and we shouldn't do anything in the future involving Iraq because we're now tainted and don't have a leg to stand on. However, handing over nuclear technology to N. Korea was an admirable thing to do. And now that they're looking to promote nuclear weapons we should ignore and cut off the rest of the world and we should utilize bi-lateral talks. Wow. Just.. wow.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by Thorgrim

I guess that's what the Persians were thinking when they cut off the head of Leonidas

way to stay on topic

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by JaJae

It's amazing how the same people who support giving N. Korea nuclear technology (from a Democrat) so adamantly oppose US "Firms" giving weapons information to Saddam. Just because US firms gave him information on weapons building doesn't mean they knew he would gas the Kurds. There's so much spin in all of this, it's hard to sort it all out.

Is this the logic???

20 years ago US firms may have sold Saddam information on how to advance his military. Saddam kills innocents. It's the US government's fault and we shouldn't do anything in the future involving Iraq because we're now tainted and don't have a leg to stand on. However, handing over nuclear technology to N. Korea was an admirable thing to do. And now that they're looking to promote nuclear weapons we ignore and cut off the rest of the world and we should utilize bi-lateral talks. Wow. Just.. wow.

The US conducted a covert military campaign to help Iraq during its war with Iran, despite knowing that Baghdad intended to use chemical weapons in a number of battles, according to a report in the New York Times
US helped as Saddam plotted chemical attacks, report says | Special reports | Guardian Unlimited

It's not just "some US firms" it was the United States government

The North Korea deal was a success and is offtopic, when Clinton left office, after 7 years, there were still zero NK nuclear weapons...the technology given to NK was not significant to NK getting nukes, it was AQ Khan and starting a whole new line of research outside the agreement that did it

The option was either make a deal to slow them down, with our own US military intelligence telling us NK was on the brink of collapsing and wouldn't last long enough to conduct a whole new line of research...they got two things wrong:
1) They didn't think the Pakistanis would help NK
2) They underestimated KJ2's ability to control

However, when Bush took office, he still faced a nuclear toothless North Korea he could have invaded, and a war hawk cabinent that would have supported him

They did nothing

[Thorgrim]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

way to stay on topic

Persians hanged Saddam...we're also talking about two cruel leaders who died deaths that were inspirational to tens/hundreds of thousands

Both got the last laugh

[Thorgrim]

"I think the manner was quite deplorable really," he said. "I don't think one can endorse in any way that, whatever your views about capital punishment.

"Frankly, to get the kind of recorded messages coming out is totally unacceptable, and I think whoever was involved and responsible for it should be ashamed of themselves."

BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Saddam death scenes 'deplorable'

UK's Deputy Prime Minister even admitting to it

I'm jealous of that aspect of the UK (although other things they do are stupid)

That they can have an open debate about such things with being labeled "anti-british"

God knows if any Democrat raised that point, they'd know that in 2008 it'd be turned into a GOP commercial where it's said "X is weak on terrorism, he even oppposed punishing Saddam"