Is this the end?

Saddam was executed last year but what is the significance of his death? One can't help but feel that his death will fuel escalated violence in Iraq.


Bush said that Saddam's execution is a key step towards democracy. How can that be when his "trial" was just a flimsy excuse for revenge? Why would they try him for the massacre of 148 Shiite villagers and not for the thousands of people who died in his torture chambers or for the gassing of 5000 villagers? Why did they use that sorry excuse for a court to convict him? Why was he convicted of one of his lesser crimes? Why all the haste to execute him? Why wasn't he tried under an international court?

Indeed there are quite a few why's about Saddam's trial and subsequent execution. In the court's haste to kill off Saddam, "justice" came out looking like medieval revenge and Saddam retained a quiet dignity until the end which undoubtedly has promoted him to the status of a martyr.

And the full-length, dolby surround sound and high definition widescreen video mobile phone captured execution videos on youtube doesn't help in anything but put more fuel to the fire. The official video was muted and only showed the beginning and the end of the execution. The full-length version? Nothing is missed. That included Saddam being taunted through out the ordeal and was killed before he finished his last prayer. I was tempted to take a look at the videos posted on youtube. I actually loaded it home but chickened out of watching it in the end. It's one thing to know that someone was killed at the end of a rope, it's another thing watching the process.

I'm one of those people who have mixed feelings about capital punishment. Sometimes it's deserved but most of the time it's not. I think we humans have come far beyond the medieval justice system. And frankly, death is an escape, it is too light a punishment. Saddam, undoubtedly, deserved the death penalty but death is not justice. Justice for the much deserved 148 Shiite villagers but not for the thousands of death at the hands of his administration. Now he would go into history as that dude who was sentenced to death for killing 148 people. It would have been much better if he was made to live and face the justice for ALL his crimes and was made to repent until the end of his natural life.