Saddam to die within 3 hours
According to CNN's main page, Saddam Hussein is scheduled to be executed by 10:00pm EST today--in under 3 hours.
While I feel no sorrow for Hussein's fate, the haste with which this whole proceeding is being carried out is strange and unnerving to me. It would seem to me that Saddam may well have information of value to the U.S. or Iraqi governments that would warrant brokering a possible deal. After all, if Dick Cheney really still believes that there were WMDs in Iraq, then would it not be worth a trade for Saddam's life to attempt to discover if they really were sent to Syria, as the neocons claim? If the neocons believe that Saddam really did have ties to terrorists, would it not be worth a trade for his life to discover the names of even a few of those he supposedly supported?
In a few short hours, however, all such opportunities to discover further information Saddam might have will be lost. The man's guilt is certain; if anyone on this earth is deserving of the death penalty, Saddam Hussein qualifies.
But from where I stand, in a few short hours the Bushies will lose any possible last chance they might have had to salvage their initial justifications for the war on Iraq.
Like Saddam, those justifications will now go out with a whimper rather than a bang, without a remote chance of redemption or resuscitation. It will be a pathetic close to an unhappy chapter of both Iraqi and American history that began with America's and Saddam's dance with death back in the early 1980's.
Meanwhile, in the wake of Saddam's death will only come more death, more pain and more torture. More pointless waste of Iraqi and American lives and treasure.
And for what? Apparently for oil, greed, and the megalomania of two men half a world away from one another, both destined for rapid exits from the world stage and leaving legacies of death, pain and destruction.
While I feel no sorrow for Hussein's fate, the haste with which this whole proceeding is being carried out is strange and unnerving to me. It would seem to me that Saddam may well have information of value to the U.S. or Iraqi governments that would warrant brokering a possible deal. After all, if Dick Cheney really still believes that there were WMDs in Iraq, then would it not be worth a trade for Saddam's life to attempt to discover if they really were sent to Syria, as the neocons claim? If the neocons believe that Saddam really did have ties to terrorists, would it not be worth a trade for his life to discover the names of even a few of those he supposedly supported?
In a few short hours, however, all such opportunities to discover further information Saddam might have will be lost. The man's guilt is certain; if anyone on this earth is deserving of the death penalty, Saddam Hussein qualifies.
But from where I stand, in a few short hours the Bushies will lose any possible last chance they might have had to salvage their initial justifications for the war on Iraq.
Like Saddam, those justifications will now go out with a whimper rather than a bang, without a remote chance of redemption or resuscitation. It will be a pathetic close to an unhappy chapter of both Iraqi and American history that began with America's and Saddam's dance with death back in the early 1980's.
Meanwhile, in the wake of Saddam's death will only come more death, more pain and more torture. More pointless waste of Iraqi and American lives and treasure.
And for what? Apparently for oil, greed, and the megalomania of two men half a world away from one another, both destined for rapid exits from the world stage and leaving legacies of death, pain and destruction.
posted by thereisnospoon at 4:17 PM
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