1.01.2007

Saddam Hussein's Execution

The world is simply different now. Expectations of privacy are passe, even at an execution. No concept of dignity attaches anymore as everyone has a mobile film recorder with them at all times. The most indecent, ill-thought action can be viewed by the entire world.

Not only that, it can define your whole life. Imagine spending the next fifty years having to explain why you spat out that birthday cake and it landed on the cat. Did you aim the semi-chewed sweet at the cat? Were you a cat-hater? My cat saved my life, you know. Such are the conversational openers you would hear for the rest of your life.

And Saddam Hussein is no exception. In the end, his defining moment was his execution. And Econo-Girl cannot complain about the sneaky filming of his death. What relief it must bring to those who suffered from Saddam Hussein's evil to see his reckoning. "There! That's the man who killed my family! Ha! He is not so big now!"

In a global spiritual sense, wouldn't the fear that you might be on t.v. cause a person to temper their behaviour? Econo-Girl thinks so. And if one were a despot, wouldn't the idea that one day you would have to answer for your choices influence them?

Not really. After all, Econo-Girl is sure that Rumsfeld never thought so.

2 comments:

The Lazy Iguana said...

Why is nobody making more of what was said at the hanging? The cell phone footage had audio.

The guys in the masks yelling pro Al-Sadar stuff. Is he not the new bad guy? The cause of a lot of the violence?

What the hell is going on over there. Who is in charge? Who did the USA install into power? And why is it any better?

Informed Passion said...

Lazy Iguana, I totally agree. I think you are absolutely right. There is nothing as upsetting as death, even when it is towards someone who as killed. Not only does it make it impossible to suffer or contemplate actions, but when those who are killed believe they are dying for their god, there is no consequence, just honor.

However, this being said, there is nothing okay about denouncing any human being who is being executed in any form. They were using his religion against him in reciting his prayer in the form used by the opposing muslim group to ridicule him.

I disagree with the last stanza. It is not the USA or the hybrid government who is to blame for the horrid actions of those around him as he was executed. It was just the witnesses who decided to use the words they felt. The government did not tell them to say what they did, but in America, that would indeed be legal. We have freedom of speech.