26 December 2006

saddam hussein = to be hung (or) this is what happens to bad puppets

had the car for a bit today and heard a snippet on npr about saddam hussein's death sentence ruling.

imagine my surprise when i heard that he wasn't found guilty of all of the awful things that he orchestrated, all of those things that i've heard for years in the line of conversations that went something like this:

me: iraq doesn't have anything to do with septemeber 11th - this war is/was a horrible, terrible, awful option.
whomever: but they have weapons of mass destruction! he wants to kill us all!


when that all fell through for the pro-warrers, it turned into this:

me: there are no weapons of mass destruction. this war is/was a horrible, terrible, awful option.
whomever: BUT HE GASSED THE KURDS! HE INVADED KUWAIT!

and here we are again, back to my surprise. nevermind that overthrowing a regime is against international law, but one would still think that he would've received this death sentence based on the above, but no. he was found guilty of the deaths of 148 people in a botched assasaniation attempt against hussein in '82. i don't recall this being a talking point in the days leading up to "operation iraqi freedom?" they have dropped all the other court proceedings for the mass gassings and kuwait invasion.

i call bullshit.

i wondered what was going to happen when it came out - about the u.s. diplomat's response to saddam hussein's wanting to invade kuwait over their oil theft. i wondered what the response would be if it was brought to light that saddam hussein's killing of his "own people" mirrors that of the rest of the world that believes that state santioned killings in the form of death penalty should continue to be invoked. and while one can't compare between the executions that hussein ordered and those imposed by the u.s. government on her own citizens, they are both horribly wrong. i wondered how the world would react to the u.s. involvement in what saddam hussein accomplished. i was equally surprised that he even went to trial. i had assumed he would be assasinated or some such before that could ever happen - as everything would come out. i wondered... but we will never know - his hanging is to be carried out in 30 days.

while many may find comfort in his death, i don't. this hanging isn't justice, it is the easy way out. he should have to sweat it out like the rest of us, not knowing when our demise may find us. i think that a far worse sentence would be an imprisoned one. one in solitude where he would find himself alone, powerless, and with his own thoughts that would certainly make the days seem much like years passing. he isn't a threat anymore. the threat lies in what is being created as we speak. same goes for bin laden - dead or alive, does it matter anymore?

the whole thing just reeks to high heaven. side of red herring, anyone?

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