We need to see the video of Saddam's hanging

The major American TV networks are saying they have refused to air the video of Saddam Hussein's hanging, claiming it would be "in bad taste." Considering the entertainment shows these networks vomit forth every season, that is ironically ludicrous.

I have opined elsewhere that executions ought to be both public and brutal, as a matter of "deterrence."  There is no point in repeating that argument here. Aside from this fact, and the cathartic effect of seeing Saddam hanged, there is a very pragmatic reason that the execution should have been public, and the body paraded about the town square (as it were): we don't know that the Iraqis actually hanged Saddam!

Now, I don't want to sound like one of those tinfoil hat-wearing whackos who are perpetually claiming to have found new evidence proving that the US government actually destroyed the WTC towers, Neil Armstrong's moonwalk was staged in a studio, and that Michael Jackson is actually of the male gender.

But the operative fact in Saddam's execution is that he was turned over to the Iraqi authorities (whoever they might happen to be this week), and that the hanging was carried out at a secret location. So, does the world have any proof positive it was done, and that Saddam won't pop up alive and well somewhere down the road, like a comic-book villain? At the very least, we should have insisted that David Kay and Hans Blix witness the hanging, and retrieved a DNA sample, to ascertain they actually killed Saddam Hussein, and not some "ringer."

Meanwhile, the Vatican continues its silly and insincere protest of Saddam's execution. The AP reports thus: (emphasis added)

(AP) -- The Vatican spokesman on Saturday denounced Saddam Hussein's execution as "tragic" and expressed worry it might fuel revenge and new violence.

The execution is "tragic and reason for sadness," the Rev. Federico Lombardi said, speaking in French on Vatican Radio's French-language news program.

In separate comments to the station's English program, Lombardi said that capital punishment cannot be justified "even when the person put to death is one guilty of grave crimes," and he reiterated the Catholic Church's overall opposition to the death penalty.

Executing Saddam "is not a way to reconstruct justice" in Iraqi society, the spokesman said. "It might fuel the spirit of revenge and sow seeds of new violence."

Lombardi expressed the hope that leaders "do everything possible" so that "from this dramatic situation ways might open to reconciliation and peace."

In an interview published in an Italian daily earlier in the week, the Vatican's top prelate for justice issues, Cardinal Renato Martino, said executing Saddam would mean punishing "a crime with another crime."

Odd, how selective the Cardinals' memories. To my recollection, the Vatican has never officially repudiated the Spanish Inquisition, the excess of the Borgia popes, or their murder of William Tyndale. For a church whose doctrine claims to hinge so much upon confession and repentance, this is especially curious.

tags: saddam  death penalty  vatican  catholicism  

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