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December 30, 2006

Saddam Is Now With 72 Virgins

And surely, given his history here on earth, all of Saddam's virgins look like Helen Thomas:

Although I always have mixed emotions over the death penalty, and the end of anyone's life is always for someone a sad event - in this case Saddam's family, if there ever was a man that truly deserved death by hanging - it was Saddam Hussein.

And now it's over:

Via Spiegel Online:

Saddam was executed by handing before sunrise Saturday. The former Iraqi dictator, who was dressed in a black coat and trousers, struggled briefly after being handed over to his Iraqi executioners by American military guards. He was reported to have grown calm, however, as the moment of his death grew closer. He held a Koran as he was led to the gallows and refused to wear a hood over his head.

He was reported to have shouted "God is great. The nation will be victorious and Palestine is Arab," before the rope was put around his neck.

Iraqi television showed what it said was Saddam's body after the execution.

Hundreds of Shiite Muslims danced in the streets in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City and others fired guns in the air to celebrate the dictator's death. The government did not impose a curfew, as it had done last month when Saddam was convicted. Meanwhile people in the Sunni-dominated city of Tikrit, once a Saddam power base, mourned his death.

Jules Crittenden says it's time to drink up:

So we're rid of him. Plenty of time later to contemplate the significance, the path forward, what it all means. This is just a moment to contemplate how much death and horror this man brought into the world. Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of men, women and children dead because of him.

The reports also indicate the witnesses to his execution danced around his body. CNN reports a witness described "fear on his face." Good. We already knew he was a coward, and we know how many deaths a coward dies.

I've filled my shot brass and raised it. Don't be shy about raising a glass yourself. The world is a better place rid of this filthy murderer.

Neil Macfarquhar says at the NYT that the hanging death of Saddam Hussein ended the life of one of the most brutal tyrants in recent history and negated the fiction that he himself maintained even as the gallows loomed-- that he remained president of Iraq despite being toppled by the American military and that his power and his palaces would be restored to him in time:

If a man's life can be boiled down to one physical mark, the wrist of Mr. Hussein's right hand was tattooed with a line of three dark blue dots, commonly given to children in rural, tribal areas. Some urbanized Iraqis removed or at least bleached theirs, but Mr. Hussein's former confidants told The Atlantic Monthly that he never disguised his.

Ultimately, underneath all the socialist rhetoric, underneath the Koranic references, the tailored suits and the invocations of Iraq's glorious history, Mr. Hussein was a village peasant trying to be a tribal leader on a grand scale.

Speaking of a village peasant trying to be a tribal leader on a grand scale, I wonder if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been following Sadaam's hanging; I have a feeling that he just may be the next nutcase to have a date with the gallows - sooner or later - and by his own people.

Cross posted by Hyscience

Posted by Richard at December 30, 2006 10:03 AM