Saddam Hussein executed.

Saddam was apparently hanged today at 03:00 GMT.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle ... 218485.stm

Personally for all I think he was an evil b*stard, I'm not convinced this will prove the best outcome overall for the country or region as a whole.

 

If they didnt kill him they would have had 20 million pissed off shi'ites and kurds.

No sympathy for him

 

Nation building can be a tricky business. No one can say how it will come out in the end. The Iraqis could scarcely have been better off with Saddam alive and they might be better off without him around. In any case, he was tried by a court and sentenced by a judge. That is more due process and justice than he gave any of his victims. I'm with CSP. No sympathy.

 

I have no sympathy for him either, however I can't help wondering if it may have been better to leave him to rot in an Iraqi jail than executing him and risk turning him into a martyr to the Arab world as a whole.

 

There is a deeper problem here.
He was sentenced in a flawed process for a relatively minor massacer.

He was equal oportunity butcher i.e. butchering everyone (Siites, Kurds Sunnis, Caldeans, Assirians, marsh Arabs). He should be tried for the realy big massacers like gassing of Kurds, after 1991 massacers of Siites in the south, war crimes ( waging agressive war against Iran, using poisenus gas on the battlefield (against Iranians), breaking of Geneva convention - regarding POW, targeting civilians in War of the cities capaign....). At it looks now Kurds and others were denied justice.

Now it all seems that he was qiuckly sentenced for small fries as a attempt of Shia vengence (they do run the goverment) and preventing realy big stuff to get to court.
From the start it was clear that justified Iranian demand that he should be sentenced by international war crimes court would not be heard (blocked by US to prevent number of skeletons droping out of the closets).
He should be tried and sentenced every crime he and his gang commited even if it took few more years.

His execution will not repair anything in Iraq but has potential to even worsen relations between Iraqis.

 

With him alive in jail he could still be a factor. A symbol or some such for the insurgency to rally behind. By now the Sunnis and Al Queda, Syrians et al have thousands of martyrs so I doubt that one more will make much difference especially considering that he didn't get religion until he was about to be executed.

 

A. There is no such thing as a "minor" massacre.
B. There were certainly more and bigger crimes that he could have been tried and hung for.
C. You can only hang someone once.
D. The other crimes can still be examined and investigated without Saddam
E. It isn't for anyone to decide except the Iraqis. The government in power, elected by the people tried Saddam sentenced him and carried out the sentence.
F.Game over

 

If Saddam was to be tried for every thing he did, he would dies of old age before the trials were finished. The prosecution knew they could get him on these counts and win.

 

Executed for one of many 100's of crimes. You know u have bad guy when that happens.

 

An international court would still have sentenced him, except the penalty would not have been as barbaric as death. He would have been given a fair trial, if lengthy, and then judged for the crimes he committed against international laws and the rights of man (for which the international court was created in the first place). I think it is a failure of the Iraqi government not to turn him over to The Hague.

What really ticks me off, though, is that the Dutch government has openly stated that it supports Saddam's death penalty. We do not have the death penalty in the Netherlands. Our minister of foreign affairs has literally said that Saddam's case is "an exception" because of the magnitude of his crimes. How can there be exceptions to banning the death penalty? This, is nothing short of a moral outrage.

"No criminal will ever be executed by our country. We do not condone it."
"Yes but this man is very bad."
"Oh, is he? Then it's all right."

The only imaginable reason for this incredible hypocrisy is that the US supports Saddam's sentence and our lapdog government simply mimicks them at every turn.

 

I think the iraqi authorities wanted to "dispose" of him as quickly as possible, because they felt that detaining him would bring violence on them. One could also argue that killing him would bring attacks on the iraqi authorities by saddam supporters.\

If they sent him to the hague he would have been there for years and you might of ended up with him dying before sentencing(he isnt young)like slobadan milosevic.

Personally, it is ironic that a government that dosent have the death penalty supports it in this case :-?

Most of his crimes were against iraqis, so why should he be sent to the hague ? I know if a politician here in canada killed a score of opponents that I'd want him on trial domestically.

 

Heres international reaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_ ... ein#Africa

 

Kurds and Iranians aren't Iraqis, and he invaded Kuwait without provocation too.

 

Told you so.

 

Everyone knows there was more than enough proof to ensure 100's of death sentences.

It would have taken much to long to go through everything, and there would have been no verdict. They were smart in choosing one of the crimes and going with it. If he went to the hague , he would have been there for years, and he probably would have died of natural causes or possibly commit suicide, and thus no justice is served.

This also serves as closure to the many people who suffered under his regime. He wasnt forced to nay of the stuff he did. He did it of his own free will, and it was out of ambition and greed. If you don't want to do the time then don't do the crime. Its entirely his own fault and I will not shed tear for this tyranical bastard.

Roel, by iraqis, I meant anyone living within it's borders.

 

Like I said, he also committed various atrocities and breached various international laws during his wars with Iran and Kuwait.

 

A crime is a crime. He commited hundreds.It dosent matter if it was in iraq or over a drawn border. We have the evidence to prove his guilt, but I would rather they tried him for one thing and get him done away with rather than examine everything and come to the same conclusion. If he went to the hague, he might have died before justice was served.

 

It's a long-standing tradition to execute dictators, though, which there is a very clear reason for: As long as the former dictator is alive, someone will always be loyal to him, and there will be an inherent fear of him returning.

 

Finally. Now they should concentrate on Osma Bin Laden. If they can find him.

 

Once the Iraqis decided to try him for crimes against Iraqis the law required that things proceed in a timely manner. Furthermore once he was found guilty and sentenced to die under Iraqi law the sentence had to be carried out within 30 days. Who are the Dutch or the Americans or anyone else to dictate to the Iraqis how they are to proceed in a legal manner regarding their own criminal courts? Are you suggesting that the Hague has a right to remove criminal cases from the jurisdiction of sovereign states and supercede the government on an internal criminal matter? Keep in mind that despite the wishful thinking of some we do not have a World Government.