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Saddam Hussein Sentenced to Death
indraneil writes "Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death along with his half brother. Three Baath party officials charged with Hussein in the killings of 148 Shiite civilians have been sentenced to 15 years in prison, while a fourth has been cleared.
He is to be hanged inside 30 days from now. Saddam Hussein has been given 10 days to appeal against the decision.
His lawyer has warned to a bloodbath if the sentence is carried out."
Is anyone even in the slightest bit surprised that this was the verdict?
Why is this news on Slashdot?
The US hand picked the judges and the sentence was a forgone conclusion.
Will Saddam get a chance to talk about how he had US support during the war with Iran? I doubt it.
Saddam shouldn't be executed he should be kept alive in a cell for the rest of his life as a lesson for the Iraqi's to learn from.
Executing Saddam will only turn him into a martyr.
Thoughts?
So we have one man responsible for thousand of deaths (Saddam) and they're now liberated. Only since the beginning of their liberation, they've actually being dying by the thousands. The irony.
Infiltrated dot Net
Could it actually become any worse than it is? So far it seems like people are being killed just about as quickly as the killers can sort out who's a Shi'ite, Suni, or Kurd. The only way I could imagine it getting worse is if they stopped trying to sort out each other, which I doubt will happen.
What do you think the Iraqis believe?
I can only guess, but I imagine it's along the lines of this: If the sentence is justified by how many innocent Iraqis Saddam has killed, maybe he shouldn't be alone on the gallows. Too bad for him that he didn't have the foresight to exempt himself from international law and basic human decency beforehand.
Several minutes ago, I saw this picture of him over on Wikipedia, and I just felt really, really sorry for him.
The man has already been stripped of his wealth and power, and imprisoned. Will killing him bring back the 148 dead Shiites?
I found out first about the WTC plane crashes on Slashdot. While everything else was a mess, Slashdot proved to be the best resouce. Sometimes the site can serve a better place by being more than just tech and yet not lose its roots.
SIG: HUP
This is the thing about the appearance of impropriety. It's an important, and formal, concept in credible court systems like those in America.
If there may be an appereance that the verdict was planned or timed, you do things to avoid even that appearance.
Such as not announcing a verdict on the weekend before the U.S. elections.
I'm not saying for sure they timed it, because I just don't know. But I do know for sure that they could have waited 3 days and changed the whole image of the thing.
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The cappeal court's verdict:
The court: "We will hang you within 7 days, but the day on which we come to hang you, it will be a surprise."
Saddam thinks: "Well, since it has to be a surprise, it won't be on the 7th day, because that's the last day, so it wouldn't be a surprise.
That means that the last day the can hang me is the 6th day ... but since they can't hang me on the 7th day, if I make it to day 6, it won't be a surprise, so day 6 is out too ...
but ... if they come for me on day 5, it won't be a surprise, because they can't hang me on days 6 or 7 ...
(repeat)
Saddam: "You cannot hang me!"
Court: "Take him outside and hang him. Surprised?"
Why UNIX?
Man, you are so cynical. I mean sure, we invaded a country to topple a dictator with whom previous Republican administrations armed to the teeth in its war with a neighboring coutry we hate, who then had to be ousted from another neighbor we like to preserve the flow of gas to our SUVs, but was allowed to brutally quell an uprising by a group with undesirable religious affiliation, but then we got hit by terrorists and the current administration said "hey, where's that Iraq invasion plan we wrote on our first day here? Here it is -- cool!" and figured we were all so ready for vengeance we wouldn't notice them Mad-Libbing in some excuses for invading to fill in the spots where they had written "FOR DELICIOUS LIFE-GIVING OIL!", then used a slimy network of surrogates to defeat an actual war veteran lest they have to touch someone who actually served in uniform, so we could keep National Guard troops over there instead of having them to use in, say, New Orleans or something? But jeez louise, you think these people would be capable of timing out the guilty verdict in a country we *control*? CYNICAL. Come on, man, the Iraqis decided that on their own. They're the ones that gave him a TRIAL. Hell, we don't even bother to do that anymore! Primitives.
But back to Saddam: death by hanging? That's idiotic. I say we kill him with all of those WMDs he had!
Bemopolis
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
I think Saddam deserves to be punished as much as the next guy. He is categorically evil and I find myself unable to deny him the death penalty. But this is so convenient for the United States. He has a great deal to tell the world about how we supported the rise of his regime. How we tried to play Iran and Iraq against each other by supplying both with weapons. Eliminating Saddam makes us that less likely to see accountability for our past transgressions.
Now that Saddam has had his trial, it is about time to put Donald Rumsfeld (and other now prominent neo-conservatives) on trial for providing material support to a man we knew to be a brutal dictator.
Why bother.
Punish killing by killing! Go hypocrisy!
Punish kidnapping by putting someone in jail! Go hypocrisy!
ALL punishments of a criminal would be considered illegal if performed by someone on an innocent person. Therefore, by your logic, all punishing of criminals is hypocritical.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
So Saddam is convicted of killing 148. The toll post-Saddam is 100,000 and counting (Iraqis) and 3,041 US military personnel. Beheadings don't count. If you ask me, I'd say 100,000 is not a bad number of casualties and we (GOP'ers) can justify the 3,041 Americans based on actionable intelligence that shows that Saddam Hussein was a terrorist.
We can all forget about Darfur now its obvious there could never be a more evil tyrant than Saddam.
America, we're (GOP'ers) asking you to forgive our sins, they're nothing more than political tricks by dems to sway the vote. We've brough gasoline prices down, we're bringing the troops home, we've got the largest unemployment ratio in five years. All is well. If you don't vote for us now, the dems will allow Rosary beads of mass destruction into America. They're (dems) secretly colluding with Osama, Kim Jong Il, and Idi Amin. And as God is our witness (keep in mind dems are really Satan worshipping sinners), if you don't vote for us terrible things will happen.
Infiltrated dot Net
I think it is something like this:
--------
| O
| \|/
| | S A D D A U S S I
| _/ \_ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
| Game Over
=====
BC E H LMNOP T VWXY | Letters Missed
** ** ** * | 7
You fail it! Your skill is not enough, see you next time, bye-bye.
Saddam Hussein: 148 killings of Iraqi people in the town of Dujail: Sentenced to death
G.W. Bush: 650,000 killings of Iraqi civilians. Sentence? Oh wait...
It's theatre. The court he was tried in has no legal standing over crimes that were perpetuated before the court was created. It was in every sense of the word a kangaroo court. He should have been tried in The Hague at the International Court of Justice. The problem with trying him there is that the US would lose control over the proceedings and would not be able to use the trial for their own political gain.
SCENE: A darkened room filled with terrorists plotting to kill and maim. Suddenly, a young terrorist bursts into the room.
Young Terrorist: Ackmed, Ackmed! I just recieved word that Saddam Hussein has been found in a court of law!
Ackmed: By Allah, that can only mean one thing... Everyone, pack your gear and go home, The insurgency is over. I'd like to thank all of you for your time and service to the cause, but democracy has won the day. As you leave, we will be handing out pamphlets on applying for a new job. Also on the way out, please remember to throw away your paper cups.
*as the terrorists leave,the lights in the hideout all turn on*
Ackmed: The electricity is back on! We can go on living now! Thank you George Bush! Thank you!
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
...I read this whole article...twice. Then I read all the comments. Not one metion of whether Saddam is a Mac, Windows or Linux user. Dammit /., what gives!
Do not poke my eye with your spork;
Do not poke it out, you dork;
Do not poke it with a beer;
Do not poke it with a deer;
Do not poke it with your dick;
That just makes you one mean prick;
Do not poke it, it won't heal;
I'll have to call DrCowboyNeal;
Do not poke it on a train;
Do not poke it on a plane;
The DHS will suspend your right;
For poking my eye out on the flight;
Poke my eye out and you'll be;
Poked in Gitmo for E-TER-NI-T;
By some guy named Bubba who;
Will poke your 3rd eye sore boo-hoo;
So don't poke my eye out Mr. A.C.;
Or the next goat.dot.cx you'll be.
Actually, the death penalty is less punishment than life in prison would be.
He figures that in death he's at least some sort of martyr. Dying alone and forgotten of old age in some solitary cell as he watches his country move on (or fall apart or whatever happens) without him denies him even that.
It also means we don't sink to the same level. You don't want to become the very thing you're fighting against.
Every day products are released, reviewed, hacked, etc.. we still post about that stuff and they are often not surprising. This is something that happened and is worthy a discussion.
I can throw a one hundred thousand pound walrus right through a brick wall.
A little monster devoured by a much larger monster.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
I found out first about the WTC plane crashes on Slashdot. While everything else was a mess, Slashdot proved to be the best resouce. Sometimes the site can serve a better place by being more than just tech and yet not lose its roots.
Too bad this gets posted while Slashdot moderation is broken.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Hanging is fairly technical process. You need to hang the body without the head separating from the torso and the hanging shouldn't take days to kill the prisoner. The rope need to be strong enough to hold the prisoner without breaking; it'll look bad if the prisoner is re-hung with a broken leg. The public shouldn't have to pay $5 USD for a bottle of beer while watching the hanging.
I find it hard to believe that the judge who was removed for being sympathetic to Saddam was not done so at the behest/pressure of the US government.
Ok, here goes... Back in 1979 Iran, a former Windows user, finally got too pissed off about all the bugs and over night converted to using Apple Macintoshs. Microsoft saw what happened and didn't like it at all, after all back in 1953 they managed to neutralize Iran's movement towards Linux through an enormous and rather expensive FUD campaign, in order to install their Windows OS on Iran's computers (along with all its features and bugs).
Also, in 1979 Saddam became president of Iraq, he didn't like Apple Macs at all, so he too saw the Iran's Mac Revolution as a problem. MS realized this and provided Saddam with all sorts of developer tools like ASP.Net and Visual Studio so he could build his own programs and spread the use of Microsoft products throughout the Middle East. And programs he wrote. Ugly programs with bad Error handling and buffer overflows.. Yet, he used them and MS didn't really care, since it was made using their products. Microsoft also saw a big threat in the USSR where everyone ran Linux (I think it was Debian), so MS was pretty happy with Saddam back then.
In 1980 Saddam believed he had written enough programs to convince Iran that Macs are far inferiour so he started a war, obviously with the backing of the software giant Microsoft. The problem was that the Mac fanboys in Iran weren't sitting on their laurels either and wrote software in Mac OS that was just as effective as Saddam's. After eights long years of dire struggle Saddam abandoned his pursuit to convince the Iranians to revert to MS Windows.
This whole thing cost him lots and lots of money; MS products aren't cheap (even when they're on discount) and neither are MS programmers. So suddenly he saw his power threatened - what if he ran out of money to buy the updates? Thus, he came up with a plan: "We fought 8 hard years against the Mac fanboys of Iran to protect you guys from the horrors of converting to Apple Macintoshs" he said addressing the other countries in the Middle East, and pointed out that especially Kuwait profited from the war while contributing nothing, except for lending money to Iraq. "You Kuwaitis would all be Mac users now! I think it would be fair if you dropped the $30 billion we owe you, so we can rebuild over here." Kuwait refused and Saddam saw no other way than to take over Kuwait.
Now this went too far for MS who saw a very lucrative and loyal customer in Kuwait so they went in personally with their MCSE certified programmers and fought back Saddam's guys - way back to Baghdad. There they stopped and, I guess for old times sake, let him continue be president though from now on with only 640KB of RAM per PC and under constant surveillance.
They installed Webcams all over Iraq. Obviously Saddam didn't like that one bit and started throwing stones at the cams while cheering when he knocked one down. He did that every once in a while, when he got bored running programs with such a limited amount of RAM. Everybody was playing Doom while he had to resort to Nibbles.
Fast forward to today: now we have all sorts of people fighting each other in Iraq. There are hordes of Mac fanboys running around on the streets causing havoc and violently opposing anyone they see as Micro
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
I had a long rebuttal typed up addressing your careless use of rhetorical devices, but decided against it about halfway through and deleted it. Frankly, posts such as yours are not insightful, interesting, funny, or informative. They're just semantic and boring.
And just as a little aside to this, your comment made me look back at /. posts from the day. One post from this discussion stands out for me...
I sympathise with your desire for revenge. But please try to bear in mind in the days and weeks to come that revenge against a large group of people will hurt many innocent people. Those responsible for this attack are unspeakably evil individuals, but don't get so caught up in your desire to punish them that you end up hurting yet more innocent people - for example the civilians of another country. God forbid this tragedy should get any worse; that's what will happen if the US seeks revenge against an easy national target such as Palestine or Afghanistan rather than hunting down the individuals responsible for this awful attack. Please don't add your voice to those calling out for blood. Enough blood has been spilled already. Let us find and punish the individuals responsible, but let us not make an easy scapegoat out of innocent civilians, whatever their nationality or religion.