... is that you now have proved to the whole Arab world that the shiite militias are US allies. By choosing to release the film of the hanging, and by using the aesthetics of the Al-Quaeda beheading-videos, you have fallen down to the level of the other death-squads. And I do not buy the crap that the filming was unintentional. Why else was the executioners wearing ski-masks? Why was the deed done on the culmination of eid? This was an open move by the shiite to anger the sunni-muslim majority of the islamic world, and an example of idiotic timing. If this is the presidents policy, then it follows that his policy is to increase the violence in Iraq, not lessen it.

It feels kind of like I agree with Tony Snow? How could that possibly be? Well, I don't agree with all of what he said, but he's on to one thing. The hullabaloo over what happened at Hussein's hanging is incomprehensible to me. With the amount of ink (and electrons) spilled over the filming and taunting at the hanging, some truly important stories could have been written. Sure, the story may drive home a couple of points about how the Iraqi and U.S. governments are inept/callous, but I'm pretty sure we had enough evidence of this already. News it's not.

Thanks to George W. Bush, could we really take the moral high ground on this? Those pictures of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib would, by most definitions, certainly qualify as a "spectacle" and at least there was the pretense of giving Saddam a fair trial. That's more than the Gitmo detainees have gotten and, as far as we know, none of them are guilty of killing even one person, much less hundreds of thousands.

Snow's statement that Saddam Hussein "murdered hundreds of thousands of people. That's why he was executed" may be the truest words he ever spoke at that podium.

But they do kind of mock any legitimacy that "long and public trial that met international standards," the one about 143 people (horrific enough, to be sure) may have had.

condemn the very spectacle he dreamed-of and fondly yearned for from the start: to get the bastard that tried to snuff his daddy. Seems like a fair enough outcome to him, I mean, with all those other dead american soldiers and Iraqui civilians as sandwhich filler for his white bread sandwich-like delusion. Let me get this straight. We justly hang Sadamm for his ruthless murdering ways and Bush is off scott-free for the ruthless slaughter wrought by shock and awe, the degrading specticles at Abu Grab, Git-mo, the murder of innocent civilians by whacko marines, the leveling of Faluja, etc. with nary a whimper or placement of blame from anyone. My heavens, why would he even give it another thought? I wonder who's going to try and convict George?

I've always had doubts about that story from the Kuwatis. Here's my take on it:

Big Daddy Bush flies to Kuwait after rescuing the incompetent and decadent rule of the Emir of Kuwait from the ruthless and cold-blooded Saddam. The Kuwatis, to use that favorite word in the Arab world, feel "humuliated" by having to be rescued after they had squandered millions on Chieftain tanks and on fighter jets that, when Saddam attacked, they didn't really know what to do with. So they cook up a supposed assassination plot to show the Americans that yessirree, they're QUITE capable of defeating something Iraqi. They find some saps and torture some confessions out of them, or even torture out some confessions before thinking of what the confessions were for.

I'm not big on conspiracy theories (they'e too messy and contrived), but I've always felt that this supposed "He tried to kill my daddy" plot didn't have a lot of evidence behind it.

As far as the White House reaction to the execution of Saddam, I'm willing to countenance capital punishment in some cases. But not this one - political executions are a dumb idea. All we've done is make him a martyr. I would rather have sent him to St. Helena, like Napoleon.

This was a pretty sorry and counterproductive spectacle. It reminds me of what Ike Eisenhower said about the murder of Benito Mussolini: "God, what an ignomious end!"

tried to kill Saddam during the war and when he was on the run. The military rightfully killed his sons. We are fighting bad people in a war.

Why would people expect the administration to condemn Saddams' hanging? He was protected by us for two years and given a fair trial (I know, poor Saddam was railroded in a false trial, blah, blah, blah).

The elected Iraqi government decided when and how he was executed. I know most of you here think it was Cheney and Rumsfeld under those guards hoods.

I keep seeing people say that Saddam Hussein was tried and executed according to Iraqi laws, which is all well and good. However, he was put on trial for ordering the killing of hundreds of Shiite people. The heads of the Iraqi government at the time (Hussein and others) those people were killed testified that those people were tried and executed according to Iraqi law of the day. On the face of it, I don't see how this trial has any more legitimancy than what preceeded the killing of the Shia. The execution of Hussein appears to be nothing more than vengeance, not justice. Justice is what we should be trying to show the world.

Stanzel said. "Prime Minister Maliki's staff have already expressed their disappointment in the filmings, so I guess we'll leave it at that."

I recently blogged about JUST this issue. I am left wondering where the investigation to find the people who taunted Saddam in his last minutes. Are they not the people who have committed the crimes here? The person who made and released the video did the world a favour, showing us just what vengeance actually looks like, despite the best efforts of the Iraqi and American governments to suppress it.

"I think the most important thing to realize is that Saddam Hussein was executed after a long trial, long and public trial that met international standards, an appeal that met international standards

From what I have read, no such international consensus exists about the Saddam trial. Instead, most independent people who have looked at the trial express serious concerns regarding the way the defense team was allowed to form, over the suppression of certain evidence, over the lack of independent translation or transcripts of the proceedings, and many other very serious questions of fairness. For Snow to make such a statement seems to go beyond a simple mis-statement of fact ... its hard not to see it as deliberate attempt to mislead.

And I think -- it's interesting because there seems to be a lot of concern about the last two minutes of Saddam Hussein's life and less about the first 69 in which he murdered hundreds of thousands of people. That's why he was executed."

Finally, it needs to be said that the previous 69 years were NOT at issue here. Saddam was being executed for a specific incident that happened at a specific time, and for no other crimes. But regardless of all that, for state execution to have any legitimacy at all, it MUST be a reflection of justice, and never be seen as an expression of vengeance.

The final 2 minutes matter very much in that calculation, and the previous 69 years matter not a whit. It has nothing to with what Saddam did or did not do ... how we execute those condemned by our society to die speaks not to THEIR crimes, but to our own morality. Sure, Saddam may very well have 'deserved' the taunting he received in his final moments, and its worth mentioning that a few years earlier, when he was running very similar execution chambers, Saddam very likely would have taunted the man he was leading to his death.

But thats my point ... the men who led Saddam to his death, killed him in the same way as Saddam killed his own victims. Saddam was a brutal man who seemed to take pleasure in the removal of dignity from others, and while there may be poetic justice in doing the same to him in his final minutes, what does it say about those doing the taunting? Doesn't it leave them standing in Saddam's shoes, holding the noose, removing the dignity?

I can entertain the argument that men like Saddam might deserve to die for the horrendous crimes they commit … but I will never accept the idea that we must become the very thugs we abhor in the process. That Saddam deserved to die may be very true, but in removing his dignity in the process we reveal how similar we are to him. True humans should condemn this execution ... Saddam was already about to pay the ultimate price for his crimes ... the added insult of taunting is surely indefensible. Why are we spending more time looking for the people who exposed the indefensible to the world rather than the people who acted indefensibly?