Kill Saddam? Why waste the rope? Do not celebrate the death of Saddam Hussein. It is a sad day when a world renown figure dies. Even one who was as cruel as Saddam is reported to have been. It is an even sadder day when that figure dies because of the vengeful acts of a power mongering rival world leader. Saddam Hussein died a long time ago. When his foray into Kuwait was thwarted by the "Desert Storm" campaign, he died. he was alive but his country was his coffin. He could do nothing. He could go nowhere. Even his airplanes were boxed in, to the point where he had them buried in the sand. He had become a non-entity. He was nothing but a tin-can dictator in a country that had nothing left to offer the world but the Babylonian antiques on display. The only reason why the United States was engaged in Iraq was that George W. Bush wanted to avenge the threat that Saddam had made on George H.W. Bush's life during "Desert Storm". There were no WMD, there was not, and still is not, a profitable oil producing industry, there was not a powerful armed services. In fact there was not even a well organized and well managed government. Among all those negatives, there was one positive: the government, for what it was worth, was secular. Now why would the United States want to upset that situation? To save lives? No way. Lives don't mean anything to the United States. Ask the Ruwandans; ask the Ethiopians; Ask the Sudanese; Ask the Somalians; Ask the Burmese, the Ugandans, Finally, ask the Darfurians. If you care to, read the history of the Holocaust and then ask the Jewish people if the United States valued life then. Of course they didn't.
Do not celebrate the execution of Saddam Hussein. Here was a living challenger to the American way of governance. Saddam was not afraid to gore some of our sacred cows. In his death, he confronts us with our very own sanctimonious conviction that we respect life more than he did. How do we prove that by celebrating his death? We have his blood on our hands. The revenge that we took out on him by deposing him and "bringing him to justice" prove that in our own way we too are dictators. In our own way, we place ourselves in the same league with God and decide whether a person lives or dies. We easily make the jump from, "It's my body" to "It's my world" and I'll make you a democratic republic whether you like it or not, even at the cost of the life of your leader.
We sit here in the United States and we disparage the Muslims because of their disregard for the value of life. How did we prove that we respect life more than they by taking the life of Saddam? How does our Christian President make the case that Christians consider life the most valuable gift that is? This Christian President of ours doesn't seem to be the least bit disturbed by his sponsorship of the deah of Saddam. This Christian president of ours has caused more death and irreparable pain in the lives of tens of thousands of people in the name of his own agrandisement -- his legacy. This doesn't appear to me to be a very good case for making Christians look good in comparison to Muslims.
Finally, I'm not an E-Bay person, but if one of you sees the rope listed on E-Bay, buy it and send it to Dr. Dean in Burlington, Vermont. He may find good use for it.
