Execution of Saddam Hussain

I feel obliged to comment on this story given that it has been a main news item for four days now.

As someone who is passionately against capital punishment I found it very difficult that Iraq had decided to put Saddam to death for his war crimes. Watching the official version was difficult too, knowing that in just seconds after the end of the filming he was dead. It is now of course much worse, for not only was he executed, something I find abhorrent, but it turns out it was not done with dignity or a sense of decorum either but with taunts and shouts.

Mind you, I dont know why I make that distinction, now that I come to think of it.

As capital punishment is something I entirely disagree with, I dont see how I can take a view about how it is "best" done.

However, all that aside, none of this means that the man was any less of a tyrant, any less of a murderer or any less deserving of the full penalty of law. He never shirked from publicly executing Iraqis and Kurds either.

I do hope that no-one loses sight of this point as they fall over themselves to find yet something else to criticise our government for. He wasnt a marvellous chap who was hard done to, he was a murderous bastard.

- and it wasn't Tony Blair who pulled the lever either, only the Daily Telegraph could walk such a fine line, claiming both that he is ultimately responsible for the execution and that he was on a dodgy holiday in Florida and couldnt bring himself to make a comment about it.

Saddam Hussain knew the legal penalties for the kind of actions he undertook, he designed most of them.