EXECUTION IN SPORTS ARENA TO AUDIENCE OF THOUSANDS CONSIDERED
VIDEO OF EXECUTION SET TO BE MOST POPULAR 'TUBE CLIP EVER
UPDATE : Stories circulating this morning in mainstream media claim that Iraq is planning a fast execution and secret burial for Saddam Hussein :
In Baghdad yesterday a senior Iraqi official said the former dictator Saddam Hussein and two aides convicted with him would be executed immediately if an appeals court confirms their sentences.
The former leader may be buried secretly, he said.
The unnamed official said he expected the judicial panel studying the appeal to confirm death sentences on Saddam, his half-brother Barzan al-Tikriti, and a former judge, Awad al-Bandar.
"We are considering the possibility of executing the three, Saddam, Barzan and Bandar, on the same day," he said. "We may bury Saddam at a secret location.
"His body may later be handed over to his relatives [later] … But the Government will ensure is that there is no memorial built for Saddam anywhere in Iraq."
The most popular job in Iraq right now may well be as chief execution of Saddam Hussein.
However, the gig isn't up for grabs because it doesn't exist.
But that hasn't stopped hundreds of Iraqis from actively lobbying the Maliki government to become Saddam's executioner. The government will be hard pressed to choose to choose Saddam's executioner when the time comes, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis feel they owe Saddam some capital revenge.
An appeals court is currently reviewing the death sentence handed down to Saddam, and while the results of that review may be known in the first days of the New Year, it might still be months before Saddam is led to the gallows. There is also the still the possibility that he may escape execution altogether.
But the worldwide interest in when and how Saddam will be executed has brought to light some horrific stories about how state-sanctioned executions in Iraq are currently being carried out.
At least 50 Iraqi men, and some women, have been executed since late 2004, according to official figures. The true figure is said to be higher, but no more than 100.
Outside of the Green Zone, Shiite death squads and insurgency executions can churn through that many people in one day.
You'd think in a modern democracy that lethal injections or death by firing squad would be the chosen method of dealing with convicted murderers or terrorists. But the Iraqi government is said to favour hang because even if may sometimes take a minute or two for the convicted to die, they do die.
Unlike firing squads, where chunks of body can be blown off, and fatal head shots don't always prove to be so fatal.
Hanging, however, can sometimes take longer than planned.
At least one Iraqi took eight long minutes to die during his gallows execution.
And another, strangely enough, had to be hung twice.
From the New York Times :
Although it is most likely that Saddam will be hung on a specially-built gallows inside the American base Camp Cropper, where he is currently being held, a more public spectacle is being discussed :On Sept. 6, the Iraqi authorities planned to hang 27 people. On the 13th hanging, according to an official who was there, the rope snapped and the convicted man plummeted 15 feet through the trap door onto the concrete floor.
“God saved me!” the man cried. “God is great! I did not deserve this!”
For an hour, he lay on the ground praying and shouting while prison guards and the executioner debated whether this constituted divine intervention and, if so, whether the man’s life should be spared.
Once a new rope was rigged, however, the man was forced up the stairs once again and successfully hanged.
Officials have considered staging a public hanging in Baghdad’s largest sports arena, Shaab Stadium, and filling the place with tens of thousands of spectators...This idea, while it would no doubt prove popular, is highly unlikely to become a reality. Such a gathering would prove to be an irresistible target for insurgency-terrorists.So who gets to attend the hanging of Saddam if it becomes a more private, more intimate affair?
In a standard Iraqi hanging, the attendance is limited to representatives from the Justice Ministry, the Interior Ministry and the prime minister’s office, and a doctor. Mr. Shibli, the justice minister, said the convict’s lawyer was allowed to attend, as well as a member of the clergy of the victim’s choice, though in practice they rarely do. The usual videographer and photographer will probably be on hand, as well, to record the hanging, officials said, and excerpts of the event may be shown later on national television.There's probably a few billion people around the world who want to see it.
Mr. Ridha says the Iraqi people will want to see it.
But if footage was made available to the media, would it be shown on the evening news?
Pffft. Are you kidding?
The Western media is not even allowed to show the dead children that litter the streets after car bombings and some coalition raids and firefights. Even when they didn't show the corpses and the charred flaps of skin that turn out be human faces, the mainstream news copped endless bucketings from Bush Co. for "only showing the bad stuff".
Cutting from a Bush speech, to a two minute clip of Saddam being hooded and hung, will not happen.
And even if they did show the truth of Iraq today by showing the execution of Saddam, they will be likely trumped, regardless, by YouTube or Google Video. In the time it would take for a journalist to record a commentary to go with the Saddam Hangs clip, it would already be out there, circulating amongst the millions. It would be reaching tens of millions of people within the hour. Hundreds of millions a few hours later.
You don't need to be a prophet to predict that the footage will become the most viewed clip of all time, even beating the Star Wars Kid.
But would you watch it?
Would you send it to friends?
And would you want your evening news to show Saddam Hussein being hung unto death?
Would you let your kids watch such a video, to reassure them that monsters do die?
No matter how long that might take?
