Hanging Saddam

Two Wrongs Making A Right?

I've commented here before that I actually disagree with hanging Saddam by his own crappy laws. Yes, they're the same set of Iraqi criminal justice laws that were used under his regime, but the swift hanging actually put him in a position to be more of a martyr than a common criminal. While it is on substantial public account and documentation that his crimes were vast, running him through a kangaroo court and swinging him from the gallows at top speed does not reflect well on the notion of a due process. The irony is sweet, but that's not exactly what we stand for, is it? Afterall, blowing him away in a hale of US Marine gun fire may have been more cinematic or poetic.

The trial actually had less gravitas than an episode of 'Judge Judy'. Indeed, the great judge Judith Sheindlin may have been a better judge than the sorrry excuse for a judge that presided over the trial. The grand irony of course is that the trial took place in the very land of the Hammurabi Law Code. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth and all that, if you've read your high school history books. And there, we let the Iraqis let a trial run - where three of Saddam's defense counsels were assassinated - run its sorry course. No mis-trial motions or declarations, no re-starts. It really makes us look grand, doesn't it? Add it to the list of crappy post-invasion administration choices by the Coalition of the Willing. You wonder how the likes of Tony Blair sleep at nights.
Anyway, such reservations aside, Iraqi officials hung Saddam Hussein.

In an amazingly morbid twist of our society, the footage is available at Youtube. I'd normally link to it but having seen it, I don't think it's something that even my bad taste can countenance - If you like, look it up yourself. It's pretty grim and gruesome.