Bold Contemplations

I have to admit that I did search the internet for pictures of the execution. However, what I find two faced is the fact that the US press shows censored versions of the video and pictures. Our president preaches the rhetoric that these criminals must be brought to justice, but yet we hesitate to show what justice really means. I am not advocating that the photos/video be widely shown, nor do I know that I even want to see them. But I think that we talk the talk but refuse to acknowledge what we are advocating.

Why are we still concerned about him? Why are people still wanting to look deeper and deeper into this. It is absurd, ridiculous and simply a waste of time. If he was worth it, he would still be in power. Let it go everyone!

Angela, why would you search the internet for pictures of his execution. What good would it do for you? Yes I'm a history buff. I love reading about WWII and other aspects of history. However, I do not need to see the horrifying details of it all.

Tony, that's exactly my point. So many people in our country, citizens and leaders, advocated his execution and said that it was justice served. However, they don't want to see the "horrifying details." If you support something (and I am not saying that I support it) there should be no reason to shy away from or avoid it. If his hanging was just and appropriate then let the world see what happens to people who commit such atrocities.

It's like advocating the death penalty, but refusing to serve the injection.....

It's like advocating the death penalty, but refusing to serve the injection

Right, and by the same token, they're demanding that the person who leaked the pictures be tried/convicted while we redistribute the pictures all across the media here.

Are the local news programming directors not guilty of 'leaking' the pictures out to the public?

In the end, this is all the same issue. Things that the generic "they" do, are bad. Those same things "we" do, are okay.

Is that just the way it is? :)

They had to show the watered down version or lose points in the ratings...which means losing advertising dollars..which is what news is all about now..making money.
Saddam enjoyed a swift painless ending unlike the tens of thousands of his victims, many of whom were children.

I personally think that he got off far too easy...perhaps a couple of decades in humiliation would send a stronger message..afterall arseholes like him thrive on ego...dismantling his deification would have been a torture far, far worse than death.

There are a few exiled tyrants still living in splendid isolation that must have been thanking their lucky stars that they escaped and didn't decide to wait it out in a hole in the ground.

Great blog post.

I find that marketing is a self promotion process that doesn't really showcase anything great. It's just a feedback loop of faux popularity.

Which is why I never subscribed to TV. The only similarity is when I saw a blogpost about the actual footage of the hanging on the net. I can then stop and ask myself: "do I really want to experience seeing someone hanged?"

causalien,

It's interesting you mention that.. a few years back, as we first started sending contractors into Iraq, they started getting captured by the early insurgents - often held in hopes of having Iraqi detainees freed and that sort of thing.

In one of the specific cases, some website purported to have the actual execution tape published online someplace - I don't recall if it was hosted here, or abroad.. but either way, I did go watch it. And it's something I can never un-watch.

I'm not sure what it was I thought I'd see... I may've just been too used to our own levels of censorship(?), but there was little time to look away from the video between the living person in the chair, and the.. not-living person moments later.

The Saddam-hanging footage that I've seen was edited in much of the way you'd expect.. and it certainly didn't have the same impact on me as the other video. But I'm sure I'll remember them both just the same.

( now, what to do with the Saddam one is the question...? do I make a video of the Saddam execution recording being executed by lethal tivo-deletion? )

Saddam, a tyrant and mass murderer, was hanged to death under the orders of an even bigger mass muderer and tyrant i.e. George W. Bush and his company of CEOs who are determined to go to any extent to get OIL. US hypocrite supported him against Iran even after he had gased the Kurds and mass murdered shi'ites. He was hanged to hide the identities of his backseat drivers.
Lol, trying to terrify others to strictly follow orders by GWB.
The video was pathetic, they like dying people such as the 650000+ Iraqi civilians and 3005+ US soldiers.
Hope someday all the small and big criminals are brought to justice.

While I don't get real caught up in the whole war-for-oil thing, I certainly grant that it would be a really easy opinion to hold. The countries we're involving ourselves in are massive players in the World's energy markets. Is it the reason we're there? Or just something we take steps to maintain/protect while things are in flux politically around them?

Our citizens, and I'd expect those in other countries as well, tend to demand lower energy costs. Do you agree? I've seen very few articles in the newspaper titled, "Finally, gas prices are rising again!" Each time the oil prices rise, there's a public outcry for our government to "do something" about it. I can very honestly say I don't know what happens in the oil-hosting countries. Do they praise their pending profits as the prices go up? Or do their citizens end up having to pay more for fuel just the same as us, and do they demand the same cost reductions as us? I'd be curious to know.

Here though, we often demand something be done. If our government acts, they're very very often accused of doing it to promote corporate profiteering, rather than supporting the needs of the population. Which way do we want it? I'm not sure I understand the outcry against ensuring that our oil supply isn't threatened... is it just because we went in under another pretext? Would it have been okay if we hadn't declared a war on terror at all, and simply declared that the US was going to invade in order to secure its oil interests? If we -were- there just for oil, and we came out and said so, would it be better? :) If we came on the news with "US invades Alaska, drills for oil -- gas prices fall $0.75." Would our govt be praised for its honesty? :)