Saddam Hussein’s last words

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NOTE: This is not the thread in which to pimp out the death video. There IS a thread to discuss whether or not you’d watch the video, and that thread is here. Not here. I’m getting rather cranky about this and future such comments will probably be deleted. Deal with it.

Saddam Hussein in custody

No, I’m not going to show the video. I’m not even going to watch it. Watching an execution to me is unconscionable, but recording someone’s last words is quite literally the least we can do.

The Guardian is reporting that, according to witnesses, his last words were taunts and boasts, followed at the last moment by prayer, and there you have the Platonically perfect end to a secular and opportunistic dictator.

By several accounts, Saddam was calm but scornful of his captors, engaging in a give-and-take with the crowd gathered to watch him die and insisting he was Iraq’s savior, not its tyrant and scourge.

“He said we are going to heaven and our enemies will rot in hell and he also called for forgiveness and love among Iraqis but also stressed that the Iraqis should fight the Americans and the Persians,” Munir Haddad, an appeals court judge who witnessed the hanging, told the British Broadcasting Corp.

Another witness, national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, told The New York Times that one of the guards shouted at Saddam: “You have destroyed us. You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution.”

“I have saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Persian and Americans,” Saddam responded, al-Rubaie told the Times.

“God damn you,” the guard said.

“God damn you,” responded Saddam.

New video, first broadcast by Al-Jazeera satellite television early Sunday, had sound of someone in the group praising the founder of the Shiite Dawa Party, who was executed in 1980 along with his sister by Saddam.

Saddam appeared to smile at those taunting him from below the gallows. He said they were not showing manhood.

Then Saddam began reciting the “Shahada,” a Muslim prayer that says there is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger, according to an unabridged copy of the same tape, apparently shot with a camera phone and posted on a Web site.

Saddam made it to midway through his second recitation of the verse. His last word was Muhammad.

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91 thoughts on “Saddam Hussein’s last words”

  1. Are you going to give us the link for the video? I don’t think it’s that unconscionable to watch him swing.

  2. It is said of Hitler that when he had the briefcase bombers strung up he had the event filmed, so that he could watch their death struggles over and over again.

    Mind the company you keep, Steve.

  3. I’m with raincoaster on this one, for sure. Watching the video of an execution is quite possibly the creepiest kind of voyeurism I can imagine– it’s like watching snuff films.

  4. Yes, theylion — it literally IS watching snuff films. There are websites where you can watch gruesome videos of terrorists performing decapitations, for example, but I pity the people who visit those sites, and wonder at their sick motivations. We think people in the 1500s were primitive for bringing their children to watch public burnings at the stake, but it looks like many of us are no different. Thanks, Raincoaster, for not showing it.

  5. I’m not going to put up the link to the video. This is not Steve Irwin who wanted the film shown; this is Saddam Hussein, being deliberately executed for political reasons. I don’t support capital punishment, and I don’t support morbid voyeurism either.

  6. Raincoaster,

    I also refuse to watch the video. I think it’s sickening that so many people are rejoicing and watching someone die, even if he was a monster. Capital punishment is proof that we haven’t changed much in hundreds of years.

  7. Indeed. Vengence is mine, saith the Lord, for those of you who are religious. And while I understand the desire for revenge and have felt it myself, both on a political/global and on a personal level against different people, I have been presented with the opportunity and motive to take life, even a pretty good self-defence motive, but I turned away from it. There are some acts which should simply not be performed, and killing a fellow human being, no matter how evil, is one of them.

    As for watching the execution, who could put it better than Metro already has?

  9. I’m all against death penalty, but I don’t see it as unethical to watch Saddam’s execution. If anything, it reminds me why I’m against death penalty. I don’t find joy in watching people die – it just strengthens my opinion that killing someone for killing someone is just plain wrong.

    What I don’t understand, though, is why people are celebrating a murder like this.

    I have been presented with the opportunity and motive to take life, even a pretty good self-defence motive, but I turned away from it. There are some acts which should simply not be performed, and killing a fellow human being, no matter how evil, is one of them.

    Does that mean that if you were in a situation where one of the two of you would die, you wouldn’t defend yourself? Or just that you didn’t find it right under the circumstances? Self defence is a long way from execution.

  10. I had the opportunity to kill someone who had attempted to kill me, and I didn’t. What would I do in a violent confrontation? It’s very difficult to say. My philosophy ties morality to action, not to intention or consequence. If you knife someone to death, you’ve killed him and you’re morally responsible for that. If you try and miss, you’re responsible for the murder attempt. If you are driving and someone jumps in front of your car deliberately you’ve had an accident and are not morally responsible for the death. I will consciously take no action designed to end a human life; if I do, it is a moral failing, regardless of circumstances.

    I’m not so attached to life that I see it as a value per se. I see it as a prerequisite for action, no more.

  11. Well, since taking away someone’s life is the same as taking away their opportunity to do actions, life would still be the most precious thing you have.

  12. Not really; it can’t be commodified, although commercial fertility treatments and fetus stem cell farming (which is apparently happening in the Ukraine) are attempts to do so, as are ransoms.

    The question is, is life worth fighting for, does it have intrinsic value or does its value derive from the potential for action? I’d say the latter, and because one cannot control outcomes of action, potential actions are themselves valueless.

    I make it sound like Immanuel Kant was an existentialist, but of course that’s not the case. Perhaps I’ll be able to make myself clearer once I’m weaned from this Sudafed.

  13. Well, imprisoning someone restricts their potential actions, and I’d guess it has value to them. Prison is, after all, a punishment and not only a means to keep people away from society. If that were the case, things that doesn’t hurt others but is still illegal shouldn’t require prison, but it does. But should it?

  14. I think there’s a tendency to label things “victimless crimes” when, in fact, they do have victims. We’ve got a solipsistic society that sees things in terms of the individual alone, but a crack addict, someone who drives without a seatbelt, etc, all hurt other people by their actions, if only because everyone is loved by someone and would be missed.

    Prison is not only a punishment or a societal-protection mechanism; it’s also (or WAS also, long ago in the mists of time) supposed to be an opportunity for rehabilitation. That is a good justification, but only if it works, and studies show that some programs work for some, but there aren’t one size fits all solutions. Further, governments do have an incentive to fail to rehabilitate people, because a handy criminal class gives them something to point at and say, “You need us to protect you from these people.” It’s like why they don’t make run-proof pantyhose. They maintain their position by selling a solution which fails, so you buy another solution, etc etc.

    I think society should be behaviorist. I think Antigone is the most important work of art ever committed to paper, and I see both sides. I don’t think motivation should count (we’re so easily misled, too, don’t forget), I don’t think outcomes should count (should manslaughter be the equivalent of first-degree murder?), I think only actions themselves should count. So, if you were really drunk when you knifed the guy the issue wouldn’t be that you were drunk, or that you were clinically depressed because the postman stole your wife; the issue would simply be that you knifed the guy.

    I’m having difficulty reconciling this with my stand as an anarchal communist, but if you ARE going to have a government, it should be behaviorist. It’s not nurturing, it’s not moral, but it would be just, efficient, and effective.

  18. Pingback: would you watch Saddam Hussein die? « raincoaster

  19. well i support capital punishment reasons being many but the one main one to me is the ancient law an eye for an eye hey gassed people diped them alive in acid and now he get what he deserves as for watching the video good thing you did not put the link for many people would just watch it for taunts and kick they dont truly understand the meaning of what is going on and it is not of a evil person getting his just deserves its about justice and karma you get what is coming to you but i truly hope this will bring stabiliyt to the area and bring back the brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers that are overseas, home

  20. Ah, not a big fan of Capital Punishment myself, but he deserved it. He’s one crazy guy though, defiant to the very end, gotta give him props for such guts. Too bad he was a tyrant.

  21. You people make me sick for such ignorance and even stupidity. If Saddam deserved to be executed what can one say of Churchill who ordered the destruction of german cities (Dresden for example), bringing death to millions of people in a holocaust of fire, or what can one say of Truman who ordered the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the atomic inferno. Oh, I know, it was the onla way to put an end to the conflict… Saddam was once a US friend, supported by the Us in the war against Iran, and profiting from it with the weapons selling of Rumsfeld.
    Curious is the fact that Saddam died for the death of kurd civilians, however, Turkey, the great ally of the US, killed already much more kurd civilians than Saddam, but I doubt the US will invade that country.

  22. Why punish yourself (or desensitize yourself) by watching something like that?

    If you saw the BBC News version, some of the bystanders started chanting “Moktadr ” in the last few seconds of Saddam’s life. It’s a reference to Shiite cleric Moktadr al-Sadr, who some believe is behind Baghdad’s secret militias. That’s who leaves the dozens of dead tortured bodies of Sunnis that are found in the morning on the streets of Baghdad.

    What Saddam did is no different from what these secret militias are doing right now.

  23. Raincoaster, Meno, Theylion, Creatrix – Thank you for standing up for what you believe in. Thank you for not showing it.

    In my opinion, not saying that my opinion is worse or better than any other, showing it only serves to encourage it and Saddam would have wanted that. Not everyone in my home agrees, one who is e-military would see it shown on pay-per-view to serve as a “this is what will happen if you are bad” kind of thing. I oppose showing it. What does that make us if we watch it? I am with Meno, mind the company you keep.

    Thank you again for doing this tastefully but still being open to differing views. A lot of people died for that freedom.

  24. A very good point, Renmeleon, thank you for that.

    Does anyone really believe that Saddam Hussein died for what he did to the Kurds? Saddam Hussein died because the American government needed him to die for political reasons. His actual crimes are not in doubt, but he’d been a brutal dictator for a very long time, and there were and are dictators far more brutal who enjoy American support instead. This isn’t what happens when you’re bad; it’s what happens when you’re inconvenient.

    Nijma, I read your post on your own blog about the “Moktadr” references. Very thought-provoking, and you’re right, there are no innocent parties in this conflict. It should haunt the dreams of every chickenhawk member of government who sent the men and women of their armed forces into a conflict under bogus pretences. They are unworthy of governing if they have that little respect for the people who are willing to lay down their lives in defence of their countries.

    Turkey will never give up the Kurdish territory, and it surprises me that even the invasion in Iraq has been unable to stabilize that portion of Kurdistan. Like the Punjab and Gaza, I fear that this region will be a hotspot for decades to come, to the detriment of its people.

    And I’d correct “Meno” to “Metro”, but I’ve read Plato and it pleases me to leave it as it is. Works on many levels.

  25. Roberto makes an interesting point–except that it’s inaccurate.

    The ancient Levitical law “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life” was written to commend mercy. Prior to that writing, typical justice could have meant “a family for an eye, your village sold into slavery for a tooth, or a thousand slaves crucified for a life”.

    In this case, “a life for a life” is thin gruel “justice” at best and political theatre at worst. The film simply complicates an already laden and dangerous situation by adding voyeurism.

    An appropriate and civil response to Saddam’s crimes (aside from not actually giving him money and weapons in the first place) would have been to try him at The Hague (where the US Army fears to tread) and imprison him there “for the term of his natural life” to eventually become a footnote on the obituary page.

    Instead, he’s still front-page news.

    The Iraqi justice system, recently reformed by those shining examples of incorruptibility, honesty, and justice the Italians, was not able to do justice nor to show justice to be done.

    That Hussein died for his crimes and thus became a martyr to some is one of the most dubious and ignoble achievements of this ignoble and dishonest campaign.

  26. someone asked how to see the hanging of saddam, you can find the complete hanging of saddam on you tube. its www. youtube.com. then in the seaqrch bar put in , saddam hussein hanging, then a souple things will pop up, you click on the second one. this isnt the right one, when this video pops up a couple other will too. you will see a box with a scroll bar on it, there willl be some videos in the scroll bar, you click on the one that says, saddam hussein complete hanging hanged. its a very striking video that shows everything, make sure you watch the whole thing becasue the camera guy gets very nervouse for a second and ti takes him a minute to close up on some pf the stuff.

  27. Thank you. Should any of my readers be so incredibly stupid as to not be able to figure that out for themselves (doubtful; I give even newmania more credit than that) they should be able to follow those simple instructions, even through your horrible mangling of the English language.

    The blogosphere wishes to thank you for your contribution: enabling death junkies to jerk off to a crude snuff video. Your mother must be so very, very proud.

  28. If you go to my site, www .SupernaturalWarfare.com, I’ve got links to the videos that are out – including the acutal drop and the hanging Saddam.

  29. Thanks for pimping that out. Again, I hope you feel proud, death-junkie. Who DOESN’T have links to the video? YouTube is everywhere, no need to go to a middleman. This is the thread about Saddam Hussein’s last words. The thread about “Would you watch Saddam Hussein’s execution” is over on the sidebar. I see your internal and external compasses function equally well.

  31. Human rights — yours and mine — are not derived from any government. Thomas Jefferson said it well,
    “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men… are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, DERIVING THEIR JUST POWERS FORM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED… [AND] IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT.”

  33. Human rights — yours and mine — are not derived from any government. Thomas Jefferson said it well,

    “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men… are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, DERIVING THEIR JUST POWERS FROM THE CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED… [AND] IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT.” (emphasis mine)

    Saddam deserved to be executed because he was an unjust, cruel, and wicked tyrant who ruled the Iraqi people according his own personal notion of what their human rights should be. He cared nothing of the very people who are taking back their unalienable right to self-governance. To those who do not believe that the death penalty is proper in this instance, I might suggest that those same people have no proper sense of JUSTICE and cannot distinguish between the wrongful taking of innocent life and the rightful power of government to execute judgment upon evil.

  34. “Saddam deserved to be executed because he was an unjust, cruel, and wicked tyrant who ruled the Iraqi people according his own personal notion of what their human rights should be. He cared nothing of the very people who are taking back their unalienable right to self-governance.”

    While true, I am reminded of the following:

    Many that live do deserve death, yet many that have died deserve life. Can you give it to them?

    I am not speaking out against the death penalty, however I do often ponder these words. I suppose we need to weigh the severity of how much a person deserves death and therein lies the quandary, where is the line? I suppose that I agree in this case, but then again who am I to be the judge? I am sure there have been cases that did not warrant the penalty in my opinion, but once again, who am I?
    I’m not sure I have much of a point here, just food for thought. Agree or disagree, just be glad you are not the one making the decisions. Even if you feel strongly about it I would wager that if it was riding on your word or signature, you would probably be forced to think about more angles than the one you currently have. Chances are you would come to the same conclusion, but maybe not. If nothing else I think any of us would appreciate other viewpoints more than we do posting comments here and there.
    Food for thought….

  35. I’m not sure what you mean by your last sentence: by posting our comments we’re articulating our viewpoints, and presumably reading those of others as well. The very act of articulating a viewpoint causes one to ponder, if only for a split second, whether or not it’s any good. I’ve often paused before hitting the Post button and thought, “But is that true? It looks a little weak right there…” and gone off to learn something new and expand and correct my philosophy.

    This may not be an Athenian symposium, but it’s as close as we can come online.

    Questions of life and death judgement of all kinds bother me. Who are we to say that someone’s “quality of life” is too low, and end it entirely? Or that someone “deserves” to die? Death may not be the gruesome punishment we think: we literally have no idea what we are doing when it comes to the death penalty.

  36. By all accounts Saddam Hussein was a terrible man who caused much suffering, torture and death to countless people. That being said I find the subsequent media circus of his trial and execution revolting. To publically record the taunting and execution of a man and then bandy it around media sites and youTube indeed places us firmly in the ranks of the filthy and uneducated as we reach for tomatoes to throw at the swinging corpses.

    CNN even had in-depth interviews with people describing all sorts of minute voyeuristic titbits like the fear in Saddam’s eyes as he was let to the gallows – deplorable!

  38. I have to disagree with you Christian.

    “Human rights” are not “inalienable”. They derive from government. Governments frame and limit the rights that they give their citizens. That some countries allow the citizens to help choose which rights shall be granted is purest luck.

    In Saddam Hussein’s Iraq no-one’s “inalienable” rights were protected. And Mr. Bush has stripped away basic human rights from anyone he chooses, including “inalienable” ones. Go read the act suspending habeas corpus. Go ask the torture victims at Guantanamo Bay or the librarians of your hometown.

    The Bush administration made it an early priority to rewrite the law, allowing covert CIA assassinations for the first time in decades before ever they invented an excuse to invade Iraq.

    Is that right? Could you–as a citizen –approve of this: the removal of an “inalienable” right from a foreign national, without trial and without recourse? And will you call it justice when you approve of it?

    Well then: is a government killing its own citizens in public any different from one murdering someone in secrecy?

    Calling the death penalty justice for murder is to argue in the words of a five-year-old: “He did it first!”

  39. Human rights cannot be stripped or granted, only acknowledged or abused. Convincing people that granting rights is the role of the government is the first step towards functional fascism.

  40. But in that case what you’re really saying is that it is the role of government to restrict and circumscribe those rights. I prefer a positive view.

    If governments do not grant AND enforce those rights, then they do not exist for any practical purpose. Humans in groups have to have those rights codified or they will not act as though they exist. The less-than-civil war in Iraq is an obvious example.

    When the United States began enforcing the right of blacks not to be property anymore, some other citizens decided to not recognize this change, and took to lynching and burning them. This terrorism went on for decades until the national spine stiffened and the government began enforcing the right to life by prosecuting those responsible for the lynchings.

    What stops homosexuals from exercising their right to pursue happiness by pursuing matrimony in Mr. Bush’s America? Their “inalienable” right has not been granted them by the government.

    It looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck. Call it a marshmallow if you like.

  41. Not at all: you’re talking to an anarchist, remember? Deep down, government is a rights-proscribing abomination as far as I’m concerned.

    Functionally, though, it’s the responsibility of the government to ensure that the inalienable rights of the people are protected from infringement. That one particular government or another pretends it alone has the ability to grant rights does not surprise me in the least, and I refer you back to my point about fascism.

  42. raincoaster, that is one of my points, although I believe I did not articulate it well. If we are indeed pausing to thing and consider other viewpoints then bravo! Unfortunately many comments and posts show their lack of consideration of other points, in my opinion, and hurt their own credibility. Additionally, comments and posts that are obviously intended to inflame are reduced, I believe, due to their very nature. I try to consider different viewpoints and incorporate them when I write to the point where at times my writing sounds like I am trying to make a point opposite of what I believe until the end. I think that this adds credibility due to the consideration of the other viewpoints, but then again that is only my opinion as well and I recognize that I could be totally off base. I also recognize that although I try to do that, I probably fail more often than I think I do.

  44. Your comment (#41) reads as though you’re agreeing with me. However I must take issue with one thing you wrote:

    “Refer (me) back to …” That is, send me back to back to … ?

    Oh dear–and you were coming along so well.

    I thought you once said you were a communist anarchist? “That is, hot ice and wondrous strange snow”. Communism demands the most extreme interference on all levels by government, anarchism demands an abscence of it. I’d always thought you were making a joke of the whole business.

  45. Not at all: that was perfectly clear. We’re all stumbling around in darkness, looking for light.

    Haha! Exactly! The one question that eludes us is this; Is there light?

  46. There must be: there are shadows.

    Metro, you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. Google “Marx”. I don’t intend to lay out for you all the lessons I laid out for Steven months ago.

  47. @ Metro

    “‘Human rights’ are not ‘inalienable’. They derive from government.”

    I can only assume then that you would have no problem submitting to the regimes of Hitler, Hussein and Kim Jong-il. May I rightfully take your life? May you take mine? Why or why not? Would you honestly agree that if I came to political power by force over you that I can arbitrarily decree what your rights are to be? Could I rightfully declare what your job must be, how you must worship, who you must marry, limit the number of children you may have, physically confine you as I please, take away property in your possession at will or worse, your life?

    Of course not. With or without justification most anyone would rebel.

    The human experience longs for freedom and the human spirit yearns for independence to as it wills. But which political philosophy and government structure balances best the notions of liberty with the human alter egos of greed and power? Is personal liberty a license to do anything one pleases even if offending the liberty of others? (Rape for example?) That is the million dollar (eternal) question not only debated among religious, legal, and political scholars, but also everyday folks like ourselves. Nations rise and fall in these social experiments we call government and it is hardly a surprise that Saddam’s version was doomed. His power was fierce yet ultimately empty because it did not have the force and will of the people.

    Don’t delude yourself. It’s intellectually dishonest and impractical to say or believe that GOVERNMENT GIVES you and I our rights. Nope. We were absolutely born with inalienable rights and we create (often imperfect) government to protect them by force ( i.e. prison, capital punishment, etc) against those that refuse to acknowledge our claim to these self-evident human rights.

    In an imperfect world it is fine to point out that other injustices or double standards may still exist. (I may or may not agree with your prior specific examples.) But just because all injustice cannot be cured does not mean we should forsake justice as a goal altogether. The Iraqi people are courageous in their stand against despotism–and rightfully so.

  50. Christian:

    I appreciate your comment, but I can’t follow your reasonng. Or perhaps you have misunderstood what I was saying.

    First–the limits of freedom: “Your right to swing your fist ends at your neighbour’s nose” has always summed it up nicely for me.

    Second: My saying that we aren’t born with any sort of rights should never have given you the idea that I would support any sort of totalitarianism. I hope I have enough idealism and faith to man the barricades and sing whatever revolutionary songs are going.

    If you took power by force, I likely could not stop you from dictating to me what my rights were. Even if you were elected I could not necessarily oppose you: look at the current American situation. All I could do is try to live bravely and possibly die gallantly–assuming I felt strongly enough to fight for them. Again, I hope I would.

    If a man must fight and die so that his children may live, how is his right to life inalienable?

    If two men are drowning and there is only one life vest, which one has the right to live that cannot be taken away? And how will that right be protected?

    If you and I had both been born into famine and poverty how would those inalienable rights be expressed? And who would defend them while we were fighting each other for the last scrap of bread?

    Force and will certainly do enter into it. As Raincoaster may recall, “All power comes from the barrel of a gun”. It is the structures that we as citizens create to protect them, and the struggles we are as a society willing to engage in to earn them, that grant us our rights.

    If the people revolt, then the government has invariably violated a right that the revolutionaries view as inalienable. Tea taxes, land rights, habeas corpus. Our rights might be seen as a measure of what we’re prepared to tolerate from our social order.

    You mention limiting the number of children you’re allowed to have. Where’s the great uprising in China? People quietly make their own arrangements be it abortion or paying fines or bribes, and then they get on with their lives. 800 million of them. If you are born into a cage your experience might just cry out for a microwave oven. If you lived in the Iraq of today you might be satisfied with ten hours of power a day and the family getting home safely.

    Where are these rights written down? In the halls of various governments. How are they enforced and defended? By various governments and their institutions. It’s why we have to be so damn careful when we vote, and why totalitarianism especially has such a $#!7ty track record. And it is also why there are such differences in what each nation state calls basic rights.

    I agree 100% that these ideals are worth striving for in the face of imperfection. The slippery concept of justice and the various rights we claim are too precious to forget, and we lose sight of those things at our peril.

    But let us never forget that they are the best of ideological constructs.

    I understand if you don’t feel convinced. So answer me this: by what mark or sign can we tell that a human being is born with inalienable rights?

  51. Rights are inalienable but can be given away; either to governments, or voluntarily laid down, like the right to life in people who serve in the military. If this were not true, the concept of sacrifice would really be rendered meaningless.

    Governments are the servants of the people, never their masters. Thomas Jefferson had a great deal to say on the subject, and all of it worth reading.

  52. I am very glad to see that selfish bastard Saddam Huseein die, I actually took pleasure in watching the video of him hanging, My favorite part is where he was hanging there lifeless with his neck snaped, I really wish that they would have killed him in a much crueller way though.

  56. Jefferson was right only when the government governs with the consent or inaction of the majority.

    I have more, but it’s turning into a blog topic on its own. Pop by tomorrow.

  57. @ Metro

    Human rights come from God–our “Creator” as Jefferson penned. Mankind is created in His image and we have our collective experience as evidence of certain boundaries that exist in nature which belong to each person, i.e. the right to possess things as our own, the right to protect ourselves and our possessions. For those of us living in enlightened, prosperous, and free nations, It is our humanity and sense of justice and charity that steps in to help other people in need. If we did not, we would be no different than the animals, i.e. Saddam.

    I fully expected your reply to include the famous swinging fist quote. By that you prove my point. The swinging fist notion is ingrained in our being and is not a limit created by government that says you have the right not to be hit. Government does not give us our rights. Raincoaster said it well, “it either recognizes or ignores” our rights. You recognize your own inalienable right to bodily integrity and most anyone would want their government to protect that human right.

    The “power at the point of a gun” quote is instructive. Maybe now we understand further the genious of the American Founding Fathers in their push for the 2nd Amendment in the Bill of Rights. How else can one protect his human rights? Those who push for gun control only follow the path to despotism. Maybe Iraq needs their own 2nd Amendment? It would be more difficult for death squads to round up innocent armed civilians now wouldn’t it?

  58. Christian:

    There are no boundaries in nature: get what you can, hold on to what you take. The most highly evolved form of law in nature takes place among social animals who by instinct and evolution have develvoped their own group norms–which they violate at necessity. Until we evolved beyond apehood we were mostly the same way, and in some places and ways we still are.

    I agree with you that senses of justice, humanity, and charity are involved in the creation of rights, but these are human-evolved concepts, protected by human structures. Citizens live under these structures, and tolerate them to a greater or lesser extent. This is indeed the very foundation of democracy–knowing that if we can’t tolerate the present management we can try to vote it out is far better than knowing we’ll have to have a revolution. ‘Specially these days.

    If my neighbour violates something I consider my “inalienable right”–say, the right to practice the tuba at midnight–by applying his fist vigorously to my nose, to whom shall I appeal? And who will decide if in fact my rights were violated?

    If I respond by slitting his throat, who will judge whether that was a just response? In the society I live in it will probably be a jury of my peers and a judge, assisted by the police. Because we are agreed that murder is a bad thing. In some places the police would more-or-less ignore it, because murder is more of a civil than a criminal matter.

    They are not allowed to kill me, here, because it is recognized that my action was barbaric and abhorrent and our society disapproves of it and considers it beneath us, more or less. I would most likely be sent to prison, possibly for life. In some countries I would pay his family about $10,000. In still others it would be an inalienable right, even a duty, for his sons to kill me (and possibly my family, clan, village, etc.). In still others the blood feud would be settled by makinf my eldest daughter marry his eldest son.

    These are the wonderful structures we evolve to try and achieve something we call balance or justice. The most amazing thing is that many of them work reasonably well, for a given value of “well”, for the people who live under them.

    The swinging fist notion isn’t “ingrained”–it’s not even literal. It’s just a good description of limits. We wish to avoid pain, and so we create rules that forbid our neighbours to swing fists into our noses, and agree as a society to be bound by those rules and give up our equal right to do likewise. Why else do we have speeding tickets?

    Those who violate the rules are treated accordingly. Considering my tuba-playing example, my neighbour might receive a medal (posthumously).

    Do you feel that the Jews of Nazi Germany were well-served by their god or their government? Their government decided they had no rights at all, and many Germans behaved as though this were true, as well as many citizens in the occupied countries. De facto and de jure they had no rights.

    We should probably leave off theology, though. I will only observe that if there’s actually a creator of any description, he’s far better at allowing that fist to crash into a nose than he is at stopping it.

    And we should definitely leave off the second amendment. It is the cause of a ridiculously high number of human rights violations per year in America, and almost no preservations at all.

    By the way: Iraq has a second amendment. One Kalishnikov and thirty rounds per household. And yet their rights continue to be violated, en masse, for some reason. Could it be because the citizenry of Iraq has no faith in their government, less in the abilities of the occupying powers, precious little in each other and either too much or none at all in a god who has thus far failed to do better?

  59. You know I have to say, how his execution took place was a little too brutal for me to even think of. Hanging executions reminds me of something from the witch trials and something that doesnt belong in our time frame. Most of you say that death penalties aren’t right and for some cases it isn’t. Saddam Hussein deserved this sentence. With all the innocent people he killed out of his cold and selfish nature, it all comes down to justice and karma. He’s tasting his specialty towards humanity. In my opinion, thats just one less evil person living on this earth anyway. I think that video taping and watching him die world wide is just disturbing. Not to mention “hanging” and “gallows” still exist….its just gives me the creeps!

    I can see why people in Iraq feel relieved that he is dead. Yes, staying in prison for life is a punishment but it wont help people sleep better at night. They fear that he can some how be free one day and get back into office. Then all hell would really break lose. The chances of that in my opinion are small if that were to happen. Anyway I think the only thing that could’ve ever really saved him was asking for forgiveness at this point, but even at the point of his death he showed no remorse.

  61. greg, thanks for hauling yourself onto your hind legs and typing with your paws, elevating the debate no end. Why don’t you go back to masturbating to pictures of your mother?

  63. Thanks, greg. How did I know you’d be an AOL user/loser. Not only are you a brutish troll who types with his manboobs, but you check back to see what we’ve made of your brilliant contributions: The same thing the orderlies on the ward do.

  65. Pussy troll??? you know Greg, nobody here cares about your mom…your probably just mad because Saddam looks better than your dumbass!

  67. LOL wow. You really have alot of time in your hands…What are you.. a snot nosed little thirteen year old kid?? Who’s barely growing some ball hair?? Just stop now, you sound so fucking retarded wasting your time on the keyboard.

  68. Awwww. Dat’s sooo cute! Look–he’s pouting!

    Don’t worry kiddo, high school doesn’t last forever. Eventually you’ll get a job working at Taco Bell, your balls’ll drop, and the zits will clear up. Then if you win the lottery you might even get laid by someone who isn’t a blood relative!

  71. I think saddam was died as a hero.He died like a lion.Where ever the lion lives it lives like a lion.Saddam hussain lived like a lion and died like a lion.If some call saddam a killer,then what you call the american leader who ordered to kill the thousands and lakhs of peple in japan.If saddam is a guilty then the american were also guilty of killing people .The americans used the nuclear weapon on japan .But no one thought to punish those people who used that weapon.Right now america is powerful but what after another country becomes as powerful as america and treat in the same way as american leaders did.then??????????
    dont forget that saddam ruled his country well
    and no other islamic leader did like that.
    ask for your self WERE ARE THE WEOPONS OF MASS DISTRUCTION
    DID THEY FOUND IT .wether the iraq is peaceful without saddam hussain
    THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT SADDHAM LIVED LIKE A LION ,AND HE DIED LIKE A LION ,AND HE ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED AS ALION.

  72. He will be remembered as many things, not all of them as flattering as that. The fact that other people have done evil things in no way mitigates the evil he did in life, always remember that. Each man and each woman is responsible for their actions, and however meagre or mighty they might be, there are no imperatives of magnitude: there are only moral imperatives. The question is never “are you big or small”. The question is “are you good or evil”.

  78. Good point–“One has to wonder what sort of person admits publicly that his/her boyfriend would prefer to wank to a snuff video of an elderly bearded despot than engage oneself in coitus.”

    Better?

  80. Note to Wanking Lovin Kimberly and Cock Sucker Greg:

    FOR FUCKS SAKE! Lay off the crack, go back to school and gain a fucking brain cell or two…..dooshbags.

  82. Thats nice Greg. We all watched him die…but it’s not that BIG of a deal to be “getting off” like you seem to be. We all knew it was coming, so what??? Is it enough for you be talking about “ox cock balls” and “pussy trolls”…….so if something pleases you…like when your having sex, is that your way of talking dirty in bed? “OH YAH OX COCK BALLS!!!” LOL hahahahhaha SORRY im just laughing just thinking about that.
    You are obviously not mature enough to handle adult discussions about life itself. and you are obviously bad at comebacks. Not to mention your sadistic pleasures.

    Get over yourself. Your rediculous.

  83. Yep, AOL is exactly where he belongs. He probably haunts Barbie chat rooms, convincing middle-aged men he’s a twelve year old girl and making arrangements to meet them after school.

  86. No doubt, he probably created his own chat room called “Ox Cock lovers”….ROOM COUNT:2 ….In the house is Greg and the drunken 50 year old man, with one tooth who fucked his sister and can’t wait to but rape him…geez Greg, I can’t believe you pay $20.00 a month for that shit.

    AOL SUCKS!!

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