On the War and the Passing of Saddam

There seemed to be something disturbingly morbid and ghoulish over the way the news channels were eagerly waiting for Saddam to be hanged. On CNN, they were proud in saying, "even if the news comes in during a commercial break, we'll cut out of it so you'll be the first to know that he's been executed." I can't say that I didn't welcome news of Saddam Hussein's hanging, he is a man who deserves as much as anybody that fate. Although I fail to see what good it'll do. He was a brutal dictator, and unfortunately there are many dictators who are deserving of what he got, but very few of them reach that point. It's a little reassuring knowing that at least one tyrant met his end where he deserved it. Too many have escaped justice. This year, Slobodan Milosevic and Augusto Pinochet were two dictators with many deaths to their blame. They died naturally; it's fitting that someone who created such violence should receive it. Is there more justice at the end of a rope than there is in a jail cell? I don't know. My personal opinion is that it's better to leave them to rot in a cell. I think that this'll only inflame tensions, and make things worse. I am horrified at the numbers of people killed and hurt in this war, there has been no justice done. This war is sickening, it's revolting, the people who planned it, and executed it, they deserve a rope of their own as much as Saddam did. Even though it may have been justified, or at least justifiable, I can only see how this will only inflame people's anger, and cause even more violence. On Christmas another milestone was reached. The number of American soldiers killed passed the number of people who were killed on 9/11, 2,973. This war is now more of a disaster, at least for the American military, than 9/11 was for the nation. Although, such a comparison doesn't seem very accurate to me. American soldiers wouldn't be analogous to people killed on 9/11, if anything, the best comparison would be to the men who hijacked the airplanes. To compare 9/11 and the Iraq war, you'd have to look at the number of civilians who've died. Recently there was a study done that aimed to find out how many deaths the war has caused. It found that there were 655,000. That number is insane. For every American that's died, as many as more than 200 Iraqis have been killed. Astoundingly, I still hear people try to justify it, they say it was the right thing to do. I just want to scream at those people, "what is wrong with you?! Are you insane!?" It's infuriating. It's also infuriating that even though an overwhelming majority of people in this country have realized that it was the wrong decision, they aren't willing to do anything about it. They don't want to do anything to try to bring it to an end. They don't want to do anything to hold people accountable for unleashing this monster. All they did was wait four years to elect a different political party into power, and remarkably, it looks like that won't help in the least. Bush is looking at the option of, instead of drawing down the number of troops, increasing it by 20,000 or 30,000 soldiers. That will only raise the number of people killed. It's disgusting. It's frustrating, seeing such devastation unfold, and being powerless, completely unable to do anything to stop it, to ameliorate it in any small way.

If there is one good thing you can say about Saddam, it is this, in spite of the indignities that he was made to suffer in his last moments on this earth, he carried himself to the end with the most dignity that could be expected of someone in his position. During his life, it is true that he was responsible for some cruel, evil barbarities, but in the face of taunting hecklers as he stood on the gallows with a noose around his neck, he took on the aura of dignified respectability. I am sure that he's cemented himself as an image, a figurehead, a hero, even a martyr, in the minds of many people, and not just the ones who have supported him all the way. I saw the video, the full one that was released and depicted the entire sordid scene. I am against executions for anybody, be it a low-life criminal gangster, or a deposed president, I would even choose to have perhaps the worst monster in the history of the world, Adolf Hitler, locked up for the remainder of his natural life, instead of showing him to the gallows, electric chair, guillotine, gas chamber, or firing squad. However, in states where people do face that penalty, it is usually administered in a bureaucratic way, aiming for something approaching justice. Saddam's execution more closely resembled a mob lynching from another era, than one where the purpose was to try to bring about justice. No one should face a jeering crowd in the final seconds of their life, except maybe Glenn Beck, I hate that fucking man.