Video of Saddam's hanging: Will you watch it?

Post-9/11 Era Forum

Fox news is reporting that a video will be made of the hanging, and shown to the Iraqi public.

Regardless of whether the American Press airs it or not, it will soon be available on the Internet. The question is, will you watch it?

Saddam is due to be hung within the next few hours, and the video should be aired sometime tonight in Iraq, if all goes to plan.

So, this is a real decision we will have to make here soon.

As for me, I'm normally squeamish, and I don't like it when death is filmed. Seems like a personal thing, death. Taping it for the ages to watch is too voyeuristic, too sick. It's enough for me to know the guy got whacked.


But I can't rule it out. I find I'm more than a little curious. I have very little empathy for this fellow, but still, evil dictator murderer or not, guy is still a human being. Sure, he is getting a far easier death than what he dished out, but filming it and sending it out like the latest netflix is slightly rude.

Fox news is reporting they will do it so the Iraqi's will know he is dead, once and for all. No doubt.

I'm back and forth. I think I will end up watching it, as I'm flip flopping back and forth so much, I will just go to youtube and check it out in a moment of extreme curiosity.

I don't think I will watch it, I think that's it just to sick to wrong, for all the terrible things he did that's still a human being at the of that noose. Beside that watching somebody being hung stays with you for a long time.
I don't think the Iraqi's need to tape it if the people want proof then show pictures of his corpse to the media but to watch him choke to deathnah I don't think that is neccesary.

I don't think that I could watch it, and be okay with it.
Not that he doesn't deserve this... but I don't need to watch it.
But, I'm sure that I will end up watching it, because I'm too damn curious, like a cat.

They hang them with a hood over their faces. I'd watch it, but I'm really a curious person too.

I'm also with the "too curious NOT to watch it" crowd. I would prefer the bag over the head thing but I would probably watch it.

Yeah... don't want to see the eyes buggin' or the tongue coming out.

Just to let you all know he refused the hood. I saw the video minus the actuall hanging of course on tv this morning. He seemed clam and had the rope round his neck but when offered the hood his reply was "there will be no need for that" then he went up the rope was secured and that is when it cuts off then you see him in a body bag with his head sticking out.

· Leaked film reveals chaotic end
· Taunts and insults hurled
· Sectarian backlash fear

Ewen MacAskill and Michael Howard
Monday January 1, 2007
The Guardian


Camera footage of the final minutes of Saddam Hussein released yesterday shows him being taunted by Shia hangmen and witnesses, a scene that risks increasing sectarian tension in Iraq.
As he stood at the gallows, he was tormented by the hooded executioners or witnesses shouting at him to "Go to hell" and chanting the name "Moqtada", the radical Shia Muslim cleric and leader of the Mahdi army militia, Moqtada al-Sadr, and his family.

The grainy images, which appeared to have been taken on a mobile phone, disclose exchanges between Saddam and his tormentors, the moment when his body drops through the trapdoor, and his body swinging, eyes partly open and neck bent out of shape. In what Sunni Muslims will perceive as a further insult, the executioners released the trapdoor while the former dictator was in the middle of his prayers.

Sunni Muslims, who were dominant under Saddam, but are now the victims of sectarian death squads, will see the shambolic nature of the execution as further evidence of the bias of the Shia-led government. They have repeatedly claimed that the Iraqi government, helped by the US and British, conducted a show trial, based on revenge rather than justice.

Saddam's team of defence lawyers claimed that the hanging had been simply "victors' justice".

The unruly scenes will also dismay the US and British governments, that are also privately alarmed at the sectarian bias of the government, led by the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki. The US and Britain believe at least some members of the Iraqi government are complicit in sectarian killings, particularly by members of the police force.

The Iraqi government last night denied the execution had been sectarian or designed for revenge. Hiwa Osman, an adviser to the Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, told the BBC: "This whole execution is about justice."

As Saddam was buried in this home village, Ouja, outside Tikrit, yesterday morning, the leaked footage appeared on the internet and on Arabic television stations. While Saddam was professing Muhammad as God's prophet, he was interrupted by shouts. One of the people observing the execution chants "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada". Saddam dismissively repeats the name Moqtada. The noose around his neck, he appears to smile and shoots back: "Do you consider this bravery?"

Another voice shouts at him to "Go to hell". Saddam, seemingly accusing his enemies of destroying the country he once led, replies: "The hell that is Iraq?"

A Shia shouts "Long live Mohammed Baqir al-Sadr," a member of Moqtada's family thought to have been assassinated by Saddam's security services. Another onlooker pleads for dignity: "Please don't, the man is facing execution. Please don't. I beg you, no!"

As Saddam continues with his prayers, saying "I profess that there is no God but God and that Muhammad ...", the executioners release the trapdoor. There is a shout: "The tyrant has fallen."

Although many Sunni Muslims also suffered under him and were glad to see him go, the manner in which the execution was carried out will have created some sympathy for Saddam. The fact that the execution took place at the start of the main Muslim religious holiday will further inflame Sunni opinion.

The tit-for-tat killings between the majority Shias, who suffered badly under Saddam, and the previously dominant Sunnis, has created a de facto civil war that could break up the country. Sunni insurgents, particularly a branch of al-Qaida, have sought to fan the civil war by carrying out a series of devastating car bomb attacks on Shia population centres, particularly Sadr City in Baghdad and towns such as Hilla and Najaf.

The response among Sunnis to the hanging and the video was to swear revenge. A man from Mosul, a mixed city in the north, told Reuters: "The Persians have killed him. I can't believe it. By God, we will take revenge." He was referring to Iraq's new leaders' ties to Shia Iran, and the Shia in general.

Accusations that the government had mishandled the execution were not confined to Sunni regions. In the Kurdish region, there was also criticism. "This execution should have been for all of Saddam's victims, and instead they have hijacked it and turned it into a sectarian event," said Anwar Abdullah, a student at the technical institute of Sulaymaniyah.

Rebwar Suliman, 21, whose uncle and grandfather were killed by Saddam's secret police in Kurdistan in the 1980s, said: "It does a dishonour to the Kurds."

Saddam was buried in the dead of night, prompting an outpouring of grief and anger from fellow members of his tribe and other Sunni Arabs. His body was flown by US military helicopter to Tikrit and then taken to the village where he was born.

Hundreds of mourners visited his tomb inside a marble-floored hall built by Saddam. Others attended the Great Saddam Mosque in Tikrit.

man, them Arabs are even more sensitive then American Liberals.

peeps need to learn to just chill out.

Very true. I just can't believe that they did it all so fast. I was expecting it to happen next year.

The cell video wasnt great...but you get to see an up close look at his face afterwords. Its not a long look, but it shows it. Nothing major as it just happened.

I just don't want to watch it because I really don't give a squirt.

-HECK!

Like I said in another thread, it wasn't anything to me. I felt rather disconnected watching it, as if I were watching any movie on tv. It just didn't seem real... yet, I know that it was. And unless it happened in front of me, and not through a tv, I just don't think that it would ever bother me.

I don't want to see someone die. That's too morbid. I don't understand this fascination. I watched the part on tv where they stop it right after they put the noose around his neck. that was more than enough for me. I mean, I don't need to see the video to know he's dead.

I actually felt sorry for the guy. He looked and acted like a kindly grandfather type. And I have to hand it to him, he went out with dignity. Just stepped up to the plate, and got hung.

I had to keep reminding myself of what a sinister evil man he was. He sure don't look it.

I never thought of him as a kindly grandfather type... no matter WHAT he looked like. I always saw only the evil dictator who commited numerous inhumane acts upon thousands of innocent individuals. He was no different, in my opinion, than Hitler... or a serial killer. He was a sick individual who, in my opinion, got off rather easy. He should have been severly tortured, and left to live his life in misery and absolute pain and terror. He deserved nothing more or less.

But that would have made those that did that ( Iraqi Government ) just as bad as he was. The problem is that many people around the wrold will see Whiddens Sadamm and that coupled with the fact that he was probably not given a fair trial is going to be powerful propaganda Sadamm could hurt Iraq more in death than he did in life.

Oh, I know... and that's too bad. I mean, there are people who do much less, and get such severe prison sentences. I don't know. You would think that the people of Iraq would want him to suffer, instead of just a quick tug of the rope, it's over, type of death.

It's a lot more mercy than he showed I bet.

-HECK!

Oh, make no mistake, I had zero empathy for this guy. I'v seen the history channel documentary's on him. I saw the footage back in the late 70's or early 80's when he took over and was smoking that cigar, while having his thugs get rid of the "congress" members. Whatever it is you call that governing body.

Yeah, he was brutal and evil, I get it. But even knowing how he tried to model himself after Stalin, that is to show propaganda and lies to make himself look like a god, I had to keep reminding myself of what he was, cause the guy didn't look like the stereotypical evil weirdo, I liked the way he presented himself, his body language, his haircut, etc.

Saddam looked cool to me, if I met him in the street, I'd probably buy the lie and think he was a A-1 fellow.

I totally hear what you're saying. I saw him as a sad old man too. It's human nature to feel some sort of empathy I suppose.

Hell, the great city of Detroit gave ol' Saddam the Key To The City, they thought he was aces.

-HECK!

I just couldn't get past who he was...
Does that make me bad for not seeing that "sad old man" in him.... and only seeing the evil dictator?
I'm not one who likes to judge people... but, when you're commiting mass killings, and heinous acts on innocent people.... well, it's a habit to judge them.

I try not to judge. That's what Wapner is for. I don't take the law into my own hands, I take 'em to court.

http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/c/c1/250px-Judgewapner.jpg

-HECK!

I will not watch it because I am a big chicken. I am a curious person but can not handle seeing a thing such as this. I am surprised at how quickly it took place. I didn't realize thats how he would be put to death but I guess thats the way of that land. I also was expecting some sort of drastic change when he was finally out of the picture.

Yeah, if you've seen on dictator go teats up you've seen 'em all.

-HECK!

I would have liked to see Mussolini hang. That would have been cool.

Hitler smearing his brains across his bunker might have been a sight.

-HECK!

I thought he took a cyanide pill, then had himself burned. But whatever, yeah, seeing Hitler bite it would be cool.

I thought he capped himself...

To the internet!

From wiki: "After intense street-to-street combat, when Soviet troops were spotted within a block or two of the Reich Chancellory in the city centre, Hitler committed suicide in the Führerbunker on April 30, 1945 by means of a self-delivered shot to the head (it is likely he simultaneously bit into a cyanide ampoule). Hitler's body and that of Eva Braun (his long-term mistress whom he had married the day before) were put in a bomb crater, partially burned with gasoline by Führerbunker aides and hastily buried in the Chancellory garden as Russian shells poured down and Red Army infantry continued to advance only two or three hundred metres away. He also had his dog Blondi poisoned around the same time"

Guess we were both right. Do we know our dictator deaths or do we know or dictator deaths?

-HECK!

Evil dictators should seek us out, so we can explain their soon coming demise to them.

Totally. We could be a think tank. Dictator Demise, Inc.

-HECK!

Because of my history, I couldn't watch this slavish act.

www.withoutsanctuary.com