"I also think the rush to execute (Saddam) on the eve of the Feast of Sacrifice (Kurban Bayrami/Eid al-Adha) was a very stupid thing to do, because it indicates once again that the US has absolutely no clue as to the culture it has involved itself with. The imagery associated with this bayram has to do with Abraham's sacrifice of his son (Ishmael in Islamic tradition; Isaac in Jewish/Christian tradition) on Mount Moriah. As a sign that the son was spared by Allah, an animal was sacrificed instead, and this act is repeated in the holiday now, with animals being sacrificed throughout the region.
With that in mind, what kind of imagery is spread regarding Saddam's execution? And that is on top of the whole question of why the execution was rushed in the first place."
* jane:
"We are not what we pretend to be. As Americans we like to believe that we act with wisdom and good judgment, and those on the right who cheered on this war most vociferously did so out of a conviction that we are a nation possessed of indominable moral rectitude. Even as they claimed the right as the world's policemen to dethrone and execute Saddam Hussein for his crimes against humanity, they openly mock Jimmy Carter for his insistence that human rights be placed in the vanguard of American foreign policy considerations. For this he is considered weak and naive. In the end I just don't believe that more than one in a hundred Americans knew that Saddam was ostensibly executed for his role in the 1982 killing of 148 Shiite Muslims, nor did they care. I would be willing to bet more still believed that Saddam had ties to Al-Quaeda, a role in the 9/11 hijackings or god help us all, weapons of mass destruction. Somewhere in the distance between political opportunism and national bloodlust the reasons for his death can be found. It's a fetid pile of refuse I'm not particularly interested in picking at just now.
Any sympathy I might feel for Saddam's plight would find him standing at the end of a very long line of victims of this war, and it's not even an abhorrance of the death penalty that moves me today (although I most certainly feel that this is nothing a civilized nation has any place engaging in). That sickened feeling in my stomach seems to mark some kind of new low to which we have fallen, murder as PR to inch the arctic approval ratings of the pathalogical boy king and his disastrous war incrementally upward. Codpiece justice and death-as-photo-op reign supreme. Perhaps this is just the last, gruesome swan song of a morally bankrupt right wing as it exits center stage, the perverse final chorus it sings in its death throes.
It is nonetheless hideous to behold."
* freak roger simon:
Surfing the 'net today in the aftermath of the Saddam hanging I see the usual suspects decrying the the dictator's execution in the predictable manners (Hello, Robert Scheer). What interests me more are the objections of capital punishment purists, because I can sympathize with their position. But I think their orthodox views are misguided in this instance. They may even have been blinded by a form of narcissism, by wanting to be considered "good."jeebus fukking christ. yes, moron, my opposition to the death penalty is because i want 'to be considered "good."' - yes, i'm a narcissistic sonvabitch, and you're a fucking logic and moral midget.
I almost always oppose capital punishment for the usual moral and practical reasons. But in the instance of political mass murderers like Hitler, Stalin and, yes, Saddam, I think public safety vastly outweighs any ideological considerations. Life imprisonment is a great risk with such people. These men (and those like them) have literally millions of adherents who would like nothing more than to free them so they can return to power and kill again. And this is not just the stuff of a Hollywood movie when a serial killer escapes and might add another twenty corpses to his dossier. The numbers here are staggering. The death of Stalin (whether natural or encouraged) more or less ended the horrors of the Gulag. An assassination of Hitler in the thirties would have saved tens of millions. Does anyone really think that an incarcerated Saddam would never be freed? I wouldn't want to bet on it.
imagine if, per chance, a bunch of 'saddamists' successfully free saddam so that he could kill millions of innocent blastocytes!?! we cant risk that possibility - so we must murder! ...and 'capital punishment purists' are 'misguided in this instance' - yada fucking yada - do i need to specifically illustrate how stupid that statement is? i think i probably do.
it's no wonder i rarely wallow in the fever swamps. i really really wish the 'other side' wasnt a broken morass of humanity. blood = boiling point. i'll stop.... now.
3 comments:
It's so simple for Roger, a case of simple things for simple minds. He must live in Oklahoma county. The Oklahoma City Police lab had a technician named Joyce Gilchrist whose shoddy work, along with that of district attorney and faux cowboy Bob "I'll prosecute anybody" Macy, put scores of innocent people in prison, including death row. Gilchrist, a black woman, was fired and sued the city for racial discrimination. Macy resigned in disgrace amid a flurry of lawsuits for wrongful prosecution. So, I wrote to my humble Congressional representatives to ask if maybe it was time to abolish the death penalty. Sen. Jim "global warming is a myth" Inhofe alone responded with a personal note informing me murder is a horrible crime and that his constituents demand "justice." Thanks for missing the point, Jim. It's so simple with a simple mind. A crime was committed. Someone was arrested. We have to see it through, and whether or not a line can be drawn between the crime and the defendant is irrelevant. Better to punish innocent people than leave a crime file open. There was a very long time in which Saddam was one of America's best allies and assets, so of course we had to fuck him and see he was killed. Let that be a lesson to America's future allies. Maybe Gilchrist and Macy can find work in the new Iraq.
uranus - that's hysteriacl about inhofe - what a moran. good on you for writing him, though.
oldschool - what oldschool said.
I know I've told that story before, so sorry to repeat myself. I'd have saved that letter since it wasn't a form letter, but it made me so mad I wadded it up and threw it in the trash. Thinking back I don't regret my decision, despite the fact it mitigates the actual, physical evidence in the world Inhofe is feeble-minded. Human compassion is something I learned all too late in life, and the state of people imprisoned in this state today is truly pitiable: a new law requires prison inmates to pay for every day they are confined, so when they're released they receive a large bill which, of course, they have to pay or get put back in jail. This deficiency of human kindness typifies our conservative environment and causes me an odd indifference to the local news. I guess I don't want to be confronted by how I regret it.
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