Why We, Some Patriotic DUers, Are "Moaning" Over Saddam's Execution

Or at least, why I'm moaning:

If we can invade a sovereign nation that's not a threat to us, for the sole reason of flexing a little political muscle, overthrow their government, put its head on trial in a kangaroo court, then hand him over to the locals to be executed ...

If we can do all that using bullshit justifications ...

What's to stop anyone from doing the same, to us, to our president?

What's to keep karma from the door?

peace and low stress :kick:r

Stepped out for a bit.

First, because I disapprove of the death penalty. Sometimes people and nations have to kill in self-defense, but somone in prison isn't a threat to anyone.

If I did approve of the death penalty, I would have been okay with executing SH, as he was a proven butcher. However, the spectacle disgusted me. It's like the damned Roman games.

I do have a question:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3001242

<on edit> K&R

I can think of plenty...

Administration plays, as to bloodthirsty tyrants, there are plenty of them the administration still supports, and they supported Saddam himself when it was to the advantage of the military-industrial complex. So saying it is justice is just pretend. Some bloodthirsty dictators get justice and some don't, but this one was targeted for a specific reason. If that country did not have oil, its dictator would be doing just fine and dandy by the military industrial complex.

:kick:

You're moaning for the violence afterwards. I'm with you there.

All I can say is that as much as I loathed the bastard, my gut doesn't feel good at his execution. It's just another layer of ugliness.

Stalin and Mao die from old age.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3005257

Remember Hate Is Love

Ignorance Is Strength

War Is Peace

Consumption Is Life

We need to crowd out this Hangman image with our own life-giving and loving imagery. Truly. These Dark Lords are playing mind-games. And there are ways to resist. THEY want a year of more Death and Darkness. What do YOU want? What have YOU seen, what do YOU know, of human goodness and hope? Form it in your mind. Hold that image fast. Push back!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3034424

Look at the leader/loser we have now, what on earth did we do to deserve him and his band of outlaws.

decades of killing other around the globe perhap. Hundreds of thousands dead in this hemisphere alone.

through 35 years of our leaders killing and raping the planet. Apathy is our sin.

There is no greater sin than for a good man to sit idly and do nothing while others suffer.

But the reason 99% of the other people are moaning is because it's what Bush wants - ergo we must be against it. Bush could find the cure for cancer and 99% of the posts on DU would be bitching about how unemployment is going to go through the roof because of all the doctors, nurses and hospice care workers that will be out of a job now.

Why would anyone spend time on a board when they have such a low opinion of 99% of the posters?

I notice you didn't say I was wrong, though.

notice I didn't say you were right, either?

there's other sites just a right turn away :7

Here's why: Bush HASN'T found the cure for cancer. Bush HASN'T done a positive fucking thing for this country, and you know it. His administration has been a downward spiral since the day he was installed. So it's not valid to talk like we would ignore his good works, because we have no way of addressing his good works. He's never done any.

It's barbaric. I for one, refuse to celebrate.

I'm still ambivalent, overall, on the death penalty. But this is just so ... not good.

the apparent glee that many americans exhibited over this execution. It makes me think that America still loves a lynching and that troubles me deeply.

When is it 'okay' to kill ?

When is it alright to purposely take a man, and do something that ends his life ? ...

Saddam was charged, convicted and sentenced, based on information that he killed a number of human beings ... (I have no doubt this is true) ....

Now he is taken, and sentenced to be put to death for those acts ....

Then HE is killed ....

IF killing is wrong, then isnt it ALWAYS wrong ? .... is it sometimes wrong and sometimes right ?

What do we know of the deaths he was charged with ? .... Are we SURE they werent the 'right kind' oif killing ? .....

Who gets to decide ? ....

I have ALWAYS, personally, been opposed to capital punishment, because, to be logically consistent, one cannot perform the SAME act that mimics, in its awful conclusion, the very acts for which the criminal has himself been convicted of ....

To be morally consistent ... you CANNOT kill a man because he killed a man .... we call that vengeance ... it is hardly 'justice', and as one can see in the tit for tat world of the middle east, vengeance solves NOTHING ....

It is NOT justice to kill a man who has killed a man .... it is just more killing ....

Hence why many of us here are frustrated by the reaction of even some DUers who seem to revel in this execution .... to accept the death of Saddam as 'justice' is to accept the death of ANYONE if it is called 'justice' ... such justice has kept the fires of death and destruction burning since .... well? who knows when ??? ....

I cannot accept that contradiction in my life : I believe it is wrong to cause death, even that of those who cause death ....

A segment of humanity forms a death cult, and they accept, and in fact promote death .... and it is based in part on a human impulse to wreak vengeance ...

A part of the human psyche gets satisfaction from revenge, at least momentarily, and it seems many human beings go into an automatic mode, and when the hangman's noose goes taut, the mob is transformed by subconscious tension. Extreme human emotions are expressed, either in absolute glee, or in utter disgust ....

For some, a base human emotion is satisfied, and a coarse animalistic need is fulfilled ....

Things are no different here .... I am as disgusted by the celebration of death at DU as I am anywhere else ....

While this is not the complete picture of what motivates human beings to kill other human beings, it does explain, crudely, some of the behavior we see out there right now, and in here as well ...

Yes, though at times I'm personally indifferent to it.

I try to avoid posting on this subject because it seems pointless. No one changes their mind. But you expressed my feelings on this exactly. Thanks for the post. It's heartening.

Sometimes it is necessary. Self-defense, for example. But I do believe it is always wrong to celebrate and gloat over it.

But that is a high threshold ... Threat of imminent death would be required, I believe ...

And yes, the gloating is ALWAYS unnecessary .... Triumphalism at its worst ...

I moan for America. I moan for what we are calling Democracy and a fair trial. I moan for my country that has invaded another country that did nothing to us. I moan for my fellow Americans that think lynching a leader of another country without a fair trial is OK.

from the United States to Pontious Pilate. This action reminds me of what Pontious Pilate did with Jesus Christ. I am in no way putting Saddam Hussein on the same level with Jesus.

... Pontious Pilate washed his hands ... Bush would just drink the water ...

I just don't understand a 'Christian' nation with such 'high' morals would do something like this.

Why was he the go to guy (Saddam) before in the region and then all of a sudden he was public enemy #1. He had nothing to do with 9/11 either. His trial was a debacle, the whole thing is like a circus freak show and bushie is the ring master.

Is bush really the third anti-christ so much touted in the bible??

must guard even his enemy from opression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
~Thomas Paine

Mr. Paine .... In a class by himself (Unfortunately)

Others are questioning this ghoulish barbarism too. As I see it, this can only come back to haunt the US--add to this all the misery, mayhem, and murder in the world the US has caused since WWII. I won't even mention Native American Genocide and enslavement for more than 150 years of Africans kidnapped from their homeland and forced into slavery here.

<clips>

Does This Public Display of Enthusiastic Hanging Help or Hurt the United States?

subscription/membership required. Scroll down.

No, this article has nothing to do with science, but then I am more than just a scientific researcher. I am also a human being, an American human being, and I have something to say. I have no doubt this article will generate a lot of hate mail, but sometimes it is better to say what is on my mind, because the action of silence on matters such as this is not my nature.
Dec 29, 2006, 20:13

http://earthchangestv.com/

.

No matter what it is, one thing is very clear - it was very stupid to execute Saddam. Dumb to the Nth degree. Of course it is all academic now, we did 'it'. Now what.

Must be from the Fred Phelps school of being a democrat. :eyes:



Welcome to DU.

we'd have BIG trubba.

You make a damn good point.

Redstone

China's army is.

CSM article from 2005 and an analysis from The Commonwealth Institute in Cambridge, MA

<clips>

Chinese build a high-tech army within an army

...China's desire, often stated, is to be a great nation. Many in Beijing feel that the country's natural right is to be the major power in Asia. But China has rarely been given high marks in global military annals. It has a "brown water" Navy that doesn't navigate open seas. It can't project power by sending forces abroad. It has relied on states like Russia for jet fighters, cruise missiles, and other advanced weapons.

Yet it now appears China is methodically changing this equation.

In a surprisingly short time, China has accomplished two feats. One, it has focused its energy and wealth on creating an army within an army. It has devoted huge amounts of capital to create a small high-tech army within its old 2.2 million-member rifle and shoe-leather force.

The specialty of this modern force, about 15 percent of the PLA, is to conduct lightning attacks on smaller foes, using an all-out missile attack designed to paralyze, and a modern sea and air attack coordinated by high-tech communications. In other words, this new modern force is designed to attack Taiwan.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1117/p01s03-woap.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

<clips>

China's Military Capabilities
Frank W. Moore
Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies

In the past decade China's growing military capability has attracted a great deal of attention, but details about the current and likely near-future state of China's military power have been in short supply. While it is true that China is modernizing its forces and increasing defense spending, the prospective improvements in overall military capability need to be set against the very low-technology starting point of China's armed forces. Click here for the full article.

http://www.comw.org/cmp/

And that's a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say.

Redstone

If we can do all that using bullshit justifications ...

It bothers me that no one is mentioning the victims here.

... America doesn't do "victims" ... it does "television", "news", "policies"
and other murderous bullshit but certainly not "victims" ...

"on trial in the killing of 148 Shia villagers in 1982"
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2006/02/01/saddam-trial-wednesday.html

Saddam one time ran into an ambush in that village.

Saddam was not in trial for gassing the Kurds in Halabja in 1988, a couple of thousand of them - apparently it was not easy to prove that.
It is questionable that he actually did gas the Kurds. It was during the Iraq-Iran war in which the US supported both sides. Iranian military was active near Halabja and they to don't like the Kurds very much. Certainly investigations would have revealed that the US supplied Iraq with the gas and that the US and the rest of the west looked the other way when it happened.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1779.htm

----

Convictions, Sentences in Saddam Trial
Saturday December 30, 2006
Associated Press

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6310853,00.html

Details of the convictions and sentences for Saddam Hussein and seven co-defendants in trial for 1982 war crimes in the town of Dujail. The specific convictions come under the broad headings, under Iraqi law, of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

----

CBS
Saddam Hanged For War Crimes
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/30/iraq/main2316465.shtml

(caption) Saddam Hussein was sentenced to death in an Iraqi court on Nov. 5, 2006. He was found guilty for the 1982 killings of 148 Shiite Muslims, stemming from attempt to assassinate him in Dujail.

---

Did Saddam Hussein Gas His Own People?
Reality Checks Needed During War
by Don Sellar
March 1, 2003 by the Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1779.htm

No doubt, Saddam has mistreated Kurds during his rule. But it's misleading to say, so simply and without context, that he killed his own people by gassing 5,000 Kurds at Halabja.

more...

some halabja victims.

he gassed the kurds, no one knows how many,,, but he did. The amount matter not. It was a cruel use of power.

I realize what he was on trial for. He is guilty of halabja too and would have met the same fate. Death.

you offer no evidence that he did.

You may think that "everybody knows" he did gas the Kurds - but "everybody knows" only because it's what government officials and the corporate mainstream media are saying - the same interests that were looking the other way and didn't say anything when the Kurds were gassed.


Did Saddam Hussein Gas His Own People?
Reality Checks Needed During War
by Don Sellar
March 1, 2003 by the Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com /
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1779.htm

"No doubt, Saddam has mistreated Kurds during his rule. But it's misleading to say, so simply and without context, that he killed his own people by gassing 5,000 Kurds at Halabja."

more...

but would it not have been useful to have us heard the charges of all those crimes he committed?

Also, the legitimacy of the "court" itself must be considered. A country under occupation undergoing a civil war with a court heavily influenced by that power can hardly be considered legitimate in any sense. This trial was simply meant to give the appearance of justice. In a case like this, I would have preferred him simply being handing him over to Shiite or Kurdish mobs. At least then we wouldn't have to listen to propaganda about the Iraqi "justice" system in action. It makes me even more suspicious how rushed and hastily the execution took place. The cooperation of several members in this administration with Saddam in the '80s makes it all the more suspicious, that Halabja was not one of the crimes he was on trial for.

In such a situation, an international tribunal would have been much better suited. All the victims of Saddam's crimes such as Kurds in Halabja and possibly even including Iranian soldiers gassed by Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war may have received some time to air their charges against him. Appeals could eventually have been exhausted. Sure, this process would have taken considerably longer, but this manipulation of the Iraqi courts by this administration would not have existed.

Yes, this idea of Saddam being tried by his own people is appealing for they were his greatest victims of thirty years or so of despotic rule, but with a government lacking any credibility, any verdict handed down by a court in such a nation is a mockery of justice.

We rule! We kick ass! USA!USA!USA!

:sarcasm:

See, the thing is, 'patriotic' drumbanging is exactly the kind of thing Bush wants. The execution was about rebuilding the ignorant redneck faction. They want jingoistic chestbeating to be the only response to anything. Four legs good, two legs bad...

Saddam never did anything to us, when you get right down to it.

There are many dictators in the world who are just as bad, too.

It's for show for the BFEE and nothing more.