Well, this will get that nasty, nasty Ford out of the news! Only Democrats can be criticized!

How many times will the word "closure" be mentioned over the next 48 hours?

I'm sure somewhere, Osama bin Laden will watch footage of the execution and thank W (who probably wanted to make sure Saddam doesn't live to see 2007) for focusing on the wrong target.

maybe the new Iraqi president will pardon Saddam, so the country can heeeaaaallll. boo hoo.

According to the Reuters report, the airing of an execution is "unprecedented" in the history of U.S. television.

What nonsense. As Rush Limbaugh reported, CNN has been willing to show the execution of a American soldier by terrorist snipers, yet they're not willing to show the execution of the mass murderer Saddam Hussein. What hypocrites.

hey Al, how about you take your complaint to CNN. i'm pretty sure nobody here is in charge of their programming.

Would actually rather see him marooned on the new Artic Floe with Shrub, Cheney and Rumdumb, but...

Hanging is too good for him. Ah, the days of yore with drawing and quartering, head on a pike.

Or have him released into the lonely desert and have canisters of gas dropped around him.

kleiman, shush. the grownups are talking now.

sweet. the spoofers are back!

It is good to note that the blogs increasingly are refusing to use the word "surge" to describe an increase of troops into Iraq and instead are calling it what it is, escalation. A result was the use of "escalation" by John Edwards in the course of his announcement of his candidacy for president. The Bush Administration, of course, is working tirelessly to discourage the use of "escalation" for "surge" for it churns up memories and parallels with Vietnam. Shades of Westmoreland.

The blogs also are increasingly calling the war the Bush/McCain War, which is what it is today, given McCain's out-front and consistent support for more and more troops. This blog is a bit behind the times on this point, but hopefully will get with the program of calling something what it is. Of course there will have to be an end to prefacing remarks about McCain with "I respect John McCain, but . . . " John McCain does not deserve our respect anymore given his record of support for the worst of the Bush Administration, among other things, including his steadfast and bull-headed support for escalating and prolonging the Iraq War. John McCain should be seen for what he is: a tired old man with tired old ideas. His time has come and gone and he no longer deserves to be handled with kid gloves. At best, John McCain should remain in the Senate where tired old men are not all that uncommon.

How much are you willing to bet that he's going to "escape" somehow, like a few other bad guys just walk out of jail?

It is good to note that the blogs increasingly are refusing to use the word "surge" to describe an increase of troops into Iraq and instead are calling it what it is, escalation.

even NPR was brave enough to let a reporter say "some critics of the increase are calling it an 'escalation'...". now if they could just work that into regular usage...

Steve Benen - when do you goofballs hold the candlelight vigils for Saddam?

As a younger man I was opposed to the death penalty for anyone. It seemed hypocritical that the state would say "It's wrong to kill" and then try to make it right by killing. Since that time, many murderers (most of them right here in the good old USA) have convinced me that some peoiple just don't deserve to share the planet with the rest of us. I'm sure Saddam fits into that category so I say the sooner the better. That being said, I think celebrating the death of anyone - I mean with parties and real celebration rather than quiet celebration in your heart - is obsene as well.

Saddam's death both serves and undermines the cause of justice. With him will die his knowledge of the US role in Iraq since the 1960's, and his specific and unique knowledge of the alliance between himself and the Reagan administration.

Saddam was not just an evil butcher. He had very powerful friends.

kleiman:

Al, cleek is a little slow. Just FYI. Don't bother explaining it to him, it's a waste of time.

First of all, you're not the fucking traffic cop on the beat.
Second of all, you confused egbert with has407 on another thread.
Third, post something useful or shut the fuck up.
---------------

Going down on your buddy Frazier:

when do you goofballs hold the candlelight vigils for Saddam?

What planet are you living on? For genocide and crimes against humanity, Saddam Hussein should be hung like a dog and executed (and I oppose the death penalty.)

Hussein's execution falls under the provision of the legitimate Iraqi government, and as much as I think there are problems with the legitimacy of their elected officials, there is no question--the execution of Hussein makes the world a better place and it is well within the rights of the Iraqi people to decide to execute him.

Not that it would actually deter the next dictator of Iraq. I mean, we're 1-3 years away from seeing another Iraqi dictator take over. Will a future generation of American servicemen and women have to die to overthrow that dictator, catch him in a spider hole, and wait for a future Iraqi government to try him and string him up, too?

Republicans seem to think that the only people who can be tried for war crimes are dirty foreigners. How long before you wake up to the fact that there's compelling evidence to put some of your own on trial?

"kleiman" smells like Chuckles to me.

If that's true, then 'Bye,'Bye Chuckles...

This is an execution without justice. It's a simple murder, the murder of an man by his accomplices for crimes both he, and our own men, commited dozens of years ago. No real country with an actual foundation of justice would have allowed a verdict like this one to stand. A fair trial would have reached the same result, but these men are so contemptuous of decency and law that they felt the need to rig a trial against an obviously guilty man. It is impossible for good, honorable people to find any consolation in this. We're murdering one man, and it has cost us thousands of men. Those who crow about this need some serious therapy.

This is an execution without justice.

Did you watch the trial? Virtually everything attempted by the defense was designed to mock the authority of the court and try to disrupt the proceedings.

The reality is, Saddam Hussein was no different than any other dictator--he was proud of the crimes he committed because he believed he had the freedom and the authority to declare any crime he may have committed a necessary action to defend the state.

Even more reason to string him up.

If that's true, then 'Bye,'Bye Chuckles...

well, whoever it was, it's gone now... and my comments are sitting up there, looking all goofy, without context :)

cleek,

Wow! I know! Too bad Chuckles is such a freaked out mess who can't figure out what to do with itself.

are you kidding -- 'err on the side of good taste'. puh-leeze. the reason there's debate is to gauge the reaction of the american people -- if the reaction is disgust, the chattermonkeys will just relate in vivid detail the particulars of the hanging. the snuff, er, news producers would much prefer the visuals, though.

"We're murdering one man, and it has cost us thousands of men. Those who crow about this need some serious therapy." - soulite

Do you remember how many people died getting Hitler out of the way? It is extremely unfortunate that over the last few centuries thousands upon thousands of people have died all over the world fighting for "just causes", but that is human nature and it will not end in our lifetime. Those who don't remember that, need serious therapy.

So, the 9/11 widows will soon be at peace, right? Have I got the cause & effect straight?

The President's got my back.

If Saddam's execution is televised, it will have very bad consequences for the USA. It will take a very long time for the world to overcome their impression of US barbarism, continueing the erosion of our world standing, and setting a precedent for the future execution of our murderous leaders. Some say Saddam's execution will become a deterent, but it does not seem to deter Bush from committing his crimes.

"......but it does not seem to deter Bush from committing his crimes." - Brojo

You know you just can't continue to call a sitting US President a criminal without proof. If you have such, please present, and if you consider yourself any type of "concerned" individual, you would not stop presenting your evidence until he is impeached and imprisoned.

So carry on, I await.

"should be hung like a dog"

Perhaps he is hung like a dog, but hanging for capital crimes supercedes his being given the military honor of being dispatched by a firing squad.

Whether it's aired on television or not is irrelevant. The video will make its way onto the internet and it will be used to recruit insurgents and terrorists in Iraq and abroad. It's just throwing more fuel on the fire.

Thanks Jay, for reminding all of us that Five more US troops were killed yesterday - I know you think that it is such a waste, when they could been doing something more beneficial such as working on Wall Street.

By, the way, what date do you have on the Right Wing Trool's Ghoul Pool, for the number to reach 3,000? Or as eggy would say, only five?, why that's a mere handful. Why at Antietam on Burnside's Bloody Bridge alone........

The video will make its way onto the internet and it will be used to recruit insurgents and terrorists in Iraq and abroad.

Technically, that shouldn't be true. Saddam Hussein was most secular in the way that he ruled Iraq; this is what the Jihadists are opposed to. They oppose any secular government in the Middle East and what replaced Saddam Hussein was a mostly Shia coalition that has put various aspects of Sharia law into effect in Iraq, thereby accomplishing a good part of what they would prefer to see if the terrorists who might be recruited come from the Shia part of Islam; the terrorists from the Sunni part of Islam might wish to see Saddam Hussein executed as a warning to other Arab leaders not to rule as a secular Arab but to embrace their way of thinking, which is to oppose Shia Islam and the rise of Iran as a power in the Middle East.

This is a huge part of why Saudi Arabia has stated publicly that they would support the Sunni insurgency if the US were to pull out of Iraq.

He could be hung like a horse, and it would matter not a whit to me how he was dispatched.

However, I would like to see "Dick and pals in a Dock" in DC.

Why are they rushing to execute Saddam when he's still facing trial for slaughtering the Kurds?

It wouldn't have anything to do with the State of the Union, would it?

A truth and reconciliation process would be much more valuable to historians. It might have also set a nice tone before the country dropped into a civil war.

At this point I think it's too late and we should just go whole hog, place him in a mosque in tikrit and drop a few daisy cutters on it.

Hussein was no hitler. He's nothing more than a small time tyrant. Our involvement in his world (and our complete and total destruction of Iraq from a cultural/social/infrastructure/political point of view) was not motivated by some feeling of moral imperative. It was purely political and egotistical.
Has no one noticed the following irony:
We (the US and the coalition of the coerced) invaded a sovereign country and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians because, and I quote:
"this is the guy who tried to kill my dad"
And then we put that man on trial for killing a hundred people because someone tried to assassinate him.
This whole thing is both too good and too bad for words.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

New Years Eve.....American TV.....Times Sq.....11:59 50......Cut to Iraq.......Saddam drops....Back to Times Sq........Ball drops.........Cut to Halliburton commerical

Are there any websites betting on his execution? What are the odds?

No doubt Saddam deserves severe punishment. Yet, the trial he got was no more than a show trial. It conveniently focused on a narrow set of crimes that avoided exposing details of anyone else's involvement. I think they want to execute him before he has a chance to write his memoirs. This is a shameful and disgusting action.

Jay writes:

Do you remember how many people died getting Hitler out of the way?

Saddam is nothing like Hitler. He's not even a Mussolini. He's at worst a bad version of Hafez al-Assad.

"By, the way, what date do you have on the Right Wing Trool's Ghoul Pool, for the number to reach 3,000? Or as eggy would say, only five?, why that's a mere handful. Why at Antietam on Burnside's Bloody Bridge alone........" - thethird?

Quit whining, you tool.

Capital punishment is barbaric.

"Saddam is nothing like Hitler. He's not even a Mussolini. He's at worst a bad version of Hafez al-Assad." - Andy

"Hussein was no hitler. He's nothing more than a small time tyrant." Gov't Skeptic

You both are describing a man that killed hundreds of thousands of people over a many years, fought wars with two neighboring countries, invading and occupying one of them, condoned rape rooms ran by his two wonderful children, used biological weapons on his own countrymen, and this is just a partial list of Saddam's resume. Then you two have the unmitigated gall to call him a small time tyrant, not worth the bother and then accuse the US President of worse crimes.

That's extreme insensitivity displayed towards those who suffered under Saddam emenating from people who consider themselves compassionate and "wordly".

You're neither. Nothing more than hypocrites and fools.

Who's the fool, Jay?

"Who's the Fool" - James

Here's the link:

"PM admits graves claim 'untrue'

Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday July 18, 2004
The Observer

Downing Street has admitted to The Observer that repeated claims by Tony Blair that '400,000 bodies had been found in Iraqi mass graves' is untrue, and only about 5,000 corpses have so far been uncovered."

Well that does it, no question Saddam was a benevolent leader.

Then there was the last paragraph of the link:

A Downing Street spokesman said: 'While experts may disagree on the exact figures, human rights groups, governments and politicians across the world have no doubt that Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of his own people and their remains are buried in sites throughout Iraq.'

Not too mention the gassing of the Kurds.

Benevolent leader indeed.

Who's the fool? You're the fool.

It was appalling enough that Saddam's two sons were shown dead on cots for days on end on American televison. That was barbaric, and disturbing.
CNN's Ed Henry, whom I normally respect, must have mentioned that Saddam will be hung about 40 times in the 30 minutes.
It is really becoming sensationalized

Jay writes:

That's extreme insensitivity displayed towards those who suffered under Saddam emenating from people who consider themselves compassionate and "wordly".

I won't shed a tear for Saddam, and I didn't indicate that I didn't understand the feelings of those who suffered under Saddam, but Saddam was no Hitler. It's not an accurate comparison. There are 46 million European deaths in World War 2, including 6 million Jews and 26 million Soviets, if you want to count deaths attributed to Hitler and Mussolini. Mussolini was responsible for 400,000 Italian deaths, as well as using chemical weapons and committing mass atrocities in Ethiopia. I'm not belittling Saddam's atrocities, but the scale of carnage caused by the Axis powers(I mean the real Axis) far outweigh what Saddam did.

Thanks
I will post more later.

The Dragon Slayer

Tommy