Washblog

Tacoma News Tribune wants to know ....

Lietta is on the TNT's survey opinion list and got the following email today:

With the execution of Saddam Hussein imminent, The News Tribune is looking for readers' reactions. How will history judge him? Was his removal worth going to war for? What effect do you think his death will have on Iraq and the war?

She's too busy focussing on a story with more substance, that of the upcoming citizen's tribunal regarding Lt. Watada.

So she asked me to respond and try to keep it down to 60 words. Me? 60 words?. I tried:

"Saddam will be no more than a footnoted dictator whose primary historical claim to fame will be Mr. Bush's excuse for exploitation based on corporate greed.

The only remaining aspect of interest for me will be the self-serving baloney from the little man Bush who'll pretend he single-handedly roped Hussein while sitting in the saddle of his presidential hobby horse."

This worst president's legacy to America will not be the trackdown and arrest of a second-rate dictator. No ... it will be this -

< End of King County Journal will actually improve things | Guest Op-Ed by Rich Moniak: Who are we fighting in Iraq? >
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chapter in the Book of Crimes and Stupidity we the pee-ons get out of our 'leaders'.  

IF the war was worth anything, it will be because of the pee-ons who tried to do the equivelent of making mahogany furniture out of popsicle sticks - it will NOT be due to the criminal jackasses in charge who sent the pee-ons into a fiasco which was in the making without being run by criminal jackasses.

IF the criminal jackasses were decent people and effective planners, removing Saddam AND fixing the country would have been tough.

This is going to be an even worse fiasco.

rmm.

http://www.liemail.com/BambooGrassroots.html

by rmdSeaBos on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 04:50:15 PM PST

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U.S. Forces On High Alert As World Awaits Saddam's Execution
December 29, 2006 8:47 p.m. EST
Komfie Manalo - All Headline News Correspondent

Arthur
You sure you ain't staking too much on yer theories? Not enough common sense?

by Arthur Ruger on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 06:15:58 PM PST

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It takes someone as monumentally wrong, as horrendously misguided, as George W. Bush to make Saddam Hussein a martyr.

You're only young once, but you can be immature forever -- Larry Andersen
Blogging at Peace Tree Farm

by N in Seattle on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 06:22:42 PM PST

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Yahoo News Update

An adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saddam would be executed before 6 a.m. Saturday, or 10 p.m. Friday EST. Saddam and others were convicted of murder in the killings of 148 Shiite Muslims from an Iraqi town where assassins tried to kill Saddam in 1982.

Also to be hanged were Saddam's half-brother Barzan Ibrahim and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the former chief justice of the Revolutionary Court, the adviser said.

The time was agreed upon during a meeting Friday between U.S. and Iraqi officials, said the adviser, who declined to be quoted by name because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

"Saddam will be handed over shortly before the execution," the official said. The physical transfer of Saddam from U.S. to Iraqi authorities was believed to be one of the last steps before he was to be hanged. Saddam had been in U.S. custody since he was captured in December 2003.

Al-Nueimi said U.S. authorities were maintaining physical custody of Saddam to prevent him from being humiliated before his execution. He said the Americans also want to prevent the mutilation of his corpse, as has happened to other deposed Iraqi leaders.

"The Americans want him to be hanged respectfully," al-Nueimi said. If Saddam is humiliated publicly or his corpse ill-treated "that could cause an uprising and the Americans would be blamed," he said.


Arthur
You sure you ain't staking too much on yer theories? Not enough common sense?

by Arthur Ruger on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 06:40:58 PM PST

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I saw the notice from CLG, and there is only one voice that came to mind.  It came to mind in a roar that I haven't heard in years.

Charleton Heston:  "Thou Shalt Not Kill"

Not that Bush gives a damn what G-d thinks...

by chadlupkes on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 08:33:01 PM PST

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I received this from the Everett Herald Reader's Network:


>From: Herald Reader Network <readernetwork@heraldnet.com>
>Reply-To: readernetwork@heraldnet.com
>To: chadshue@hotmail.com
>Subject: Saddam Hussein's hanging
>Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2006 11:55:32 -0800


>"We'd like to know what will you do when Saddam Hussein is hanged?


>What will his death mean?


>Please include a daytime telephone number where you can be reached and the city in which you reside.


>We hope to use responses in a story for Saturday's paper.


>Thank you again for being a part of The Herald Reader Network."


>Sincerely,


Jeff Switzer
>and
>Jim Haley
>The Herald writers


So I responded:


"I don't know how much attention I will give to Saddam's hanging. I am not a proponent of the death penalty so I certainly will not rejoice. Because I have always believed that the capture, trial, and sentencing of Saddam Hussein has been more of a side-show for the Bush Administration to play on the emotions of both the Iraqi and American people, I am curious about what they will have to pull out for display after he is dead.


Overall, the story of Saddam Hussein is a vivid example of how an American foreign policy set by commercial interests is a failed policy. When it was convenient for Hussein to be our friend, we fed him the tools to commit the crimes he was found guilty of. When he became too overreaching in his own desire to control the oil beneath his country, we moved in to overthrow him to protect the interests of those American corporations that had the most to lose. The Iraqi people were never the target of George Bush's agenda, as it must be obvious from the lack of any type of plan to secure the vaccum of leadership left by the deposing of Saddam Hussein.


For the Iraq people who were abused under the rule of Saddam Hussein, watching him die may serve as some closure to that pain. However, the fact that their daily lives have turned into a matter of identifying corpses, struggling for the basics of electricity and clean water, and avoiding public places in fear of the next suicide bomber (invited into their country by an American invasion) cannot long allow that closure to provide much healing."
 


Peace,

Chad Shue
Everett, WA
425 341-1061
County Rep. 38th LD Democrats
Vice-Chair, DFSC
General Secretary, PCSCD
--------------------
You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you may join us
And the world may live as one..............John Lennon
**************
Iraq Body Count: 12/29/06
Americans Killed: 2992
Americans Wounded: 22,565
http://icasualties.org/oif/
Iraqi Dead: Est.: 57,628
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
Iraqi Dead: Est.: 150,000
Iraqi Health Ministry
Iraqi Dead: Est.: 655,000
http://www.thelancet.com/
.......................................................
Latest Confirmed Casualties
*Sgt. John T. Bubeck, 25, of Collegeville, Pa. died Dec. 26 in Baghdad, Iraq.
*Spc. Elias Elias, 27, of Glendora, Calif., died Dec. 23 in Baghdad, Iraq.
*Sgt. Jae S. Moon, 21, of Levittown, Pa., died Dec. 25 in Baghdad, Iraq.X
*Sgt. 1st Class Dexter E. Wheelous, 37, of Winder, Ga., died Dec. 25 in Baghdad, Iraq.
*Spc. Michael J. Crutchfield, 21, of Stockton, Calif., died Dec. 23 in Balad, Iraq.
*Spc. Joseph A. Strong, 21, of Lebanon, Ind. died Dec. 26 in Baghdad, Iraq.
*Spc. Douglas L. Tinsley, 21, of Chester, S.C. died Dec. 26 in Baghdad, Iraq.
*Cpl. Joshua M. Schmitz, 21, of Spencer, Wis. died Dec. 26 in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
*Lance Cpl. William C. Koprince Jr., 24, of Lenoir City, TN died Dec. 27 in Al Anbar province, Iraq.
*Capt. Hayes Clayton, 29, of Georgia, died Dec. 25 in Balad, Iraq.



Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue

by The Left Shue on Fri Dec 29, 2006 at 10:14:38 PM PST

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Appreciate my husband sharing this at Washblog and the reaction comments shared and posted.  Chad, good to hear Everett newspaper also solicits for reader thoughts and you took the time to share yours.

I'm not expressing an opinion, I'm more startled by my own reaction and can't quite wrap my mind around the concept.  For some odd reason, I honestly did not think there would be a follow through that would actually carry out an execution of Saddam - it's just very surreal to me right now.

 

On the Surge in Iraq "--we have set the bar so low it's buried in the sand at this point." - Barack Obama

by Lietta Ruger on Sat Dec 30, 2006 at 06:04:34 AM PST

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For the most Iraqi deaths while he was in power?

A. Saddam Hussein
B. George W. Bush

Arthur
You sure you ain't staking too much on yer theories? Not enough common sense?

by Arthur Ruger on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 07:58:20 AM PST

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