Thanks Lara,
Having read about Saddam's history, and the horrible stuff he's done, I wasn't sorry to see him go. But your post explains really elequently why, despite his crimes, his death doesn't help anybody. It also doesn't seem completely just that he was hanged for his crimes, but those in the United States government that approved and assisted him don't recieve any penalty whatsoever.

I've been struggling with this this week too. I mean...as Shems said, he was a dispicable person, absolutely. And, I also understand that for some people, they would always feel the fear/specter that he may return to some kind of power (legitimate or behind the scenes) somehow and get his revenge if he were kept alive...but I'm not sure I really think his execution ultimately solves anything. And yes...executing him on the first day of the Eid seems ill-timed on a few accounts--insensitive to Muslims who may even support his ouster and/or execution to have such an important holiday marked by this, and for those who supported Hussein, it makes him seem the martyr. I'm sure I'm missing something, and I know there are other reasons they *did* choose the day they did, but it just seems, I don't know, insensitive and irresponsible in timing too.

In addition to the points Lara makes, a commentator on NPR made another interesting observation: Saddam Hussein was executed before all his trials were even complete. He received the death sentence on the charges from the first trial, but there were other war crimes and masacres for which he was supposed to stand trial. That means he never stood trial or was held accountable for those crimes. So...in the eyes of some of the families and people against whom he committed those crimes, justice was not done because was no opportunity for them to face him and for him to be held accountable for those things.

It's also interesting to note...he's one of only two or three 20th century heads of state to be executed for crimes in war or against his people (one was formally executed...another was killed for his crimes, but I'm not sure if it was a formal trial/execution situation.) Many others are rotting in prison, living in exile, or have died in prison or while awaiting trial.

The whole situation in Iraq is very unfortunate...I worry too that the legacy of this war could be "we took a bad situation and made it worse." Unfortunately, this situation has some clear roots in east-west miscalculation that dates back at least to Sykes-Picot.... *Sigh*

Let's get a few facts straight in the preceding posts:

What was done to Saddam Hussein was not an "execution" but a cold-bloodied murder. Read the latest news that is being reported about militias storming into the place he was and taking him by force, etc.

Even if the present Iraqi "government" was really in charge, it is still an illegal act of murder. The "government" is a puppet regime of the u.s. occupation. The americans had no right to kidnap and hold him. They had no right to deliver him to his enemies. The "trial" was illegal, by the dicta of several international human rights organizations, etc.

The accusation of "gassing" Kurds was refuted a long time ago by an inquiry of the u.s. congress. They concluded it was Iran that committed that crime.

The murder of Saddam Hussein on the eve of Al Adha was not "unfortunate," but deliberate. It was a deliberate insult to the majority of the Muslims, and the americans and their puppet Iraqis intended it that way. But what will be remembered is that Saddam was a martyr and a sacrifice, because Eid Al Adha is the feast of the sacrifice. The joke is on the war criminal americans and their stooges in Iraq. BTW I am not a Muslim.

Yes, Iraq was a secular, stable, modern, progressive state. Dictators are all over the world and especially the middle east but if they dare confront the americans, they are branded criminals and are demonized in the western mis-media, like they did to Saddam Hussein. But what about the Egyptian little pharoah, or the Jordanian son of the english hairderesser? They are dictators, too, but because they do the bidding of the americans, they stay in their palaces.

Under Saddam Hussein most of the oil revenue of Iraq, which had been nationalized, went to buiid the country, not into the hands of a few western oil merchants, like is happening now. After the destruction of Iraq by the war criminal americans in 1991, it took Saddam Hussein's government less than six months to rebuild all that was destroyed in Iraq. Today, after almost four years of direct american control, the country is still in ruins, to say nothing of the chaos and murder that is going on.

Saddam Hussein's "mistake" was that he wsas a threat to the zioNazi "state of israel" and because the american oil "government:" wanted direct control over Iraqi oil. It is a bunch of murderous thugs in control of the planet. The Alliance of Evil--the americans, the zioNazis and the british--is destroying this planet with their wars and destruction and people are still ignorant of what is really going on. Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia, Sudan, etc., etc.,