I feel nothing regarding Saddam's execution...

[Wetzelbill]

Maybe when it happens it will hit me, but right now I feel nothing either way. I do not favor capital punishment by any means, I believe it is immoral and if even one innocent person is falsely executed than that is one too many, yet I cannot muster any sympathy for Saddam. I thought maybe I could. Right now I can't. It is sort of disturbing me. Sure he has committed some heinous crimes, but is it our ("our" as in humanity or society) decision and/or right to make him pay the ultimate penalty?

I don't think it is, yet I have no sadness over his impending death.

[Infinite Hope]

1. Wow, I thought I was alone in that sentiment. n/t

[Wetzelbill]

6. I feel lots of ambivalence

right now. It's pretty odd.

[Erika]

2. I feel a sadness of our trampling of another government

and replacing their law with W's law. One which I think he will suffer for in his legacy.

[Wetzelbill]

4. yeah I'm along those same lines too nt

[northofdenali]

7. I agree, Erika, but I still have no depth of feeling

about Mr. Hussein. I realize he is/was a brutal dictator; I also realize we invaded a country, totally uninvited, for that country's oil.

I am sad about trampling another government, but I cannot feel sadness about Saddam Hussein, except in my opposition to capital punishment.

[Raine]

3. Same here

I can't muster sympathy for the guy after what he did to his own people. I still think killing him is wrong, I would rather keep him around and pump him for info.

[Wetzelbill]

5. probably is a classic case of somebody knowing too much

Saddam knows where Reagan and Poppy Bush buried the bodies.

[uppityperson]

29. indeed, dead men tell no tales.

hey, did you hear the recent news about Timothy McVeigh, something about wishing they could get more out of him but he's dead too.

[Mikey929]

14. Pump him?

Pump him for info? Is that code for torture? If not, then what exactly does "pump him" mean? Sounds like more than politely asking him to tell us what he knows.

[Raine]

26. Geesh it's just a term

a very old term, maybe you're too young to have heard it. It's what kids would say to each other. If I had meant it as code for torture I would have put it in quote marks!

[iamtechus]

8. Who told you that Saddam is evil and why do you have so much faith in what they say?

.

[dicknbush]

9. Amen to this..We have been brainwashed by the Propagandists

Was Saddam an evil man? Perhaps. So was Stalin sow was the guy who just kicked off in Turkmenistan so are any number of leaders around the world including the Bush family. THink about it The bush family are probably responsible for the deaths of about a million human beings. Including his fathers participation in the first Iraq war. Littler Georgie is doing his best to catch up to pappy. Saddam was doing what most leaders in dictatorships do when there authority is challenged. THis happened with our allies who we supported in Central america during the 70s and 80s. Does that make us evil by proxy? According to the law that Bush is supporting we are evil as well as Saddam. We supported Allende we supported the contras we support rouge elements in Columbia even today.
And the most important thing of all to remember is this. THe entire Iraq adventure is a lie. It is a fraud. The invasion was a lie the occupation is a lie and everything that flows from that including the laws that are now in effect in Iraq are fraudulent!

[Wetzelbill]

16. again very good points, but irrelevant

to my own reflections.

Also, we supported Pinochet, not Allende.

And, taken into consideration, I do believe our actions in Iraq are fraudulent, if not criminal. That, of course, angers me. But Saddam's fate? I do not have empathy for that. Not right now. No more than I would if say ten years ago I heard Saddam was assassinated or died in some other way. I had no empathy when I heard Pinochet died. Or the other day when I heard Suparmurat Niyazov (leader of Turkmenistan) died. Obviously you have no empathy for Niyazov, does that make you brainwashed by the propagandists because of the way you felt? Did you know his name, or anything about him? Or did you just consider him a perhaps evil man because you heard somewhere that he was? I do not know if you did or not, I would say you probably are not brainwashed. But you did imply that I was in a reply to a post that had no relevancy to my own introspection. Be wary of making assumptions like that.

[Wetzelbill]

15. who told you I said he was evil and why do you have so much faith in what they say?

Never once do I use the word evil. Your reply is irrelevant to what I am getting at. See, nobody told me anything, what I do is look at the facts and formulate my own opinion from there. Is Saddam evil? I do not know, nor do I care. "Evil" is a label that gets tossed around all too frequently, so much so that most of the time it has no valid association with reality. Is Saddam "Hitler Revisited?" No, he is not. Is he a bad guy? Well yes, in many ways. There is no doubt he committed atrocities. He gassed the Iranians, he even gassed his own people, albeit they were Kurds, at Halabja. When he assumed power he famously held a meeting and had his men take his political rivals, and some others who were deemed potential future threats to his power, out back and executed point blank. He quelled political dissent with torture and executions. Sure, he had reasons for all of this, some valid, but, in the end, whether he was evil or not, he without a doubt was a brutal repressive dictator. Facts are facts and he did what he did, some with American support and some without. I think he was a bad person. He veritably did bad things. That's not even debatable. Maybe the context in some cases is debatable, and certainly someone could point to others who helped Saddam in certain instances and question the injustice of their not being held accountable, but, without a doubt, Saddam has committed some awful actions.

My OP is not about what anybody said or did not say. It is a personal reflection on why, for some reason, I feel no empathy for Saddam. Maybe I will, I very well could just be numb right now. I just feel no emotion one way or the other at this time. I do not support the death penalty. I do not believe he should be put to death. I am certainly not going to cheer when his sentence is finalized. But as of this time, I feel no sadness for his death. No happiness, no sadness. Nothing. This lack of empathy for me is puzzling and startling, as I am normally capable of great empathy. This introspection is what my post was about. Not anything else.

[951-Riverside]

10. Not even a tummy ache?

Personally I could careless if you held you breath until you turned blue over his death but I think you're missing the bigger picture, why is he condemned to die such a barbaric death yet others (who I will not name for legal reasons) will probably die of old age?

What we will see is not justice its pure lunacy.

[Wetzelbill]

13. oh no, when I think of that it pisses me off

that is certainly the bigger picture, however, in the particular instance of his death, I feel nothing. I find it odd, because I typically have great empathy for others, I want to feel something, just right now I do not.

I do not believe his death holds any kind of justice, I am embarassed about our country's role in it. Embarassed about our invasion of Iraq. I feel melancholy when I think of the Iraqi people and the hardships they have endured. I feel sadness for Saddam's family and the people who care for him. I can empathize with that. Right now, I have no emotion one way or the other about him though. That's troubling to me.

[radfringe]

11. same here

on one hand, Saddam was a tyrant and many many people died as a result of his reign

on the other hand - His capture, trial, conviction and soon-to-be death is not a result of us "liberating the Iraqi people" - it's a result of manipulation and lies.

brings me back to an old question: Does the end justify the means?

the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[Wetzelbill]

18. I would say not

Not when the means cost us our credibility and standing in the world. Not when it costs the lives and treasure that it has. The whole Iraq situation is an embarassment, a truly dark time for our country and a black eye on our national mythology.

[fujiyama]

12. I feel nothing for Saddam

I am saddened however, by our part in this - by our unjustifiable invasion and subsequent establishment of a "court" which has no legitimacy on the world's stage. What we have is the appearance of justice being carried out.

I am angered when our government tells us this is an important event. Saddam's death will not lead to a decrease in violence. The violence will continue and hundreds, if not thousands more will continue to needlessly die.

Saddam is irrelevant. It's worth noticing how no one has risked their life to try to break him out. The man was nothing more than a petty thug - a cornered, paranoid, and ultimately isolated and powerless thug. Now however, the world will undoubtedly find some sympathy for him. The war now is about which type of theocracy will prevail in Iraq - a Sunni one or a Shiite one.

Only Bush could manage to make Saddam look sympathetic in the world stage.

[smirkymonkey]

23. I completely agree with you.

Saddam is irrelevant. This is just a red herring, a lame attempt to make it seem like some "progress" is being made on the war on terror. It's not.

This is another Bushco sponsored circus to divert attention from the fact that Iraq is a complete disaster. Also, I am sure Saddam has some tales to tell about the Bush family and his execution will insure that the world will never know the complete truth.

[malaise]

17. But is this about your feelings

or due process of law? Is this about your feelings or international laws governing captured prisoners of war? Is this about your feelings or the fact that Saddam remains under US custody?

From my perspective this isn't about Saddam, it's about establishing dangerous precedents. This is about the US invading and occupying a sovereign country, lynching its leader and stealing its resources.
Contemplate for a momemt the reverse situation. As much as I hate the BFEE, do you think I could support Barbara and Jenna being already dead with pictures of their corpses all over the internet and MSM or W heading for the gallows based on an illegal invasion and a kangaroo court trial?
Bush has killed hundreds of thousands more people than Saddam. What are your feelings about the reverse situation. Remember same knife stick goat stick sheep.

[Wetzelbill]

19. definitely about my feelings

I am making a distinction here, sitting aside the other stuff for a moment, simply focusing on his death and death alone. No politics, nothing about law or anything else. My post is only about my own introspection on why I, for some reason, feel no sympathy for Saddam. Why I chose to articulate it is because this lack of empathy is out of character for me. To the point I am somewhat disturbed that I am so careless.

Now the other side of this argument, the one you make about the rule of law, the illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq, well, your feelings are my feelings. It angers me. To no end. I have a cousin over there. A few friends. A kid who I used to coach when I was a HS wrestling coach. If it were the reverse situation I would definitely feel irate at the rule of law. Without a doubt. As I do with the rule of law in this situation. And, definitely, Saddam is not the focus here, it truly is a bigger picture. Yet, my OP is not about that side of it, as I mentioned at the beginning of this response.

I am merely reflecting on my own personal feelings, or lack thereof, in this immediate instance. Is that as important as the whole political ramifications regarding precedents and so forth? No, it is not, and I will not waste much time on the topic, especially as opposed to the bigger picture. I just mentioned it, because that is what I happened to be thinking about tonight.

[malaise]

20. OK then

My nephew was there too. What a mess.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

21. You don't have to muster any sympathy for anybody to be against the DP.

There are some people out there I'd kill myself if I had the chance, and yet I WOULDN'T want them to be sentenced to death by a court and executed by the State.

[Wetzelbill]

22. in a nutshell

exactly!

[leesa]

24. I think you should be upset that the purpose is to destroy a witness against

the Bush Crime Family. It has nothing to do with his crimes. Obviously, Bush and his pals don't give a shit about how many Iraqis Saddam whacked since they have whacked more.

It's about destroying evidence. You should care about that.

[Wetzelbill]

25. well yeah nt

[burrowowl]

27. Read River Bend's latest post

for a perspective none of the MSM is even broaching. Especially how the U$ makes it out as an all Sunni problem.

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

[Marr]

28. I'm not exactly stirred to emotion, either. Of course, as a liberal, I thought

Hussein was a thug back when Reagan, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush Sr., etc. were praising and supporting him.

I'm no fan of capital punishment, but I find it difficult to care about the occasional authoritarian who ends up being killed by the state. That's what those sorts of men are all about, after all. I only wish our own authoritarians could sample their wares as well.

His execution does trouble me, but for purely pragmatic reasons. It's sure to usher in a new level of violence, for one thing.

[bigwillq]

30. I'm mad

I think he should rot in jail for the rest of his life.
I am mad in principle. I really don't care either way if he lives or dies. If he dies, I won't cry. If he lives, it doesn't affect me either.

I just don't want him to be executed and die a martyr.

[michaz]

31. Everything in my whole being

tells me this is a horrible thing. I am not saying that the man should not be punished or even put to death. But by hanging...turns my stomach! And to gloat about it is abominable. The US news covers this like it is the only news in the country. We sure are showing the rest of the world that we are heartless and careless people. I do not want to be thought of in that light. For Bush or anyone involved in this to say that they have nothing to do with this is absolutely ridiculous! We started it!!