Dead Man's Jig

More details are becoming available on the execution death of the tyrant Saddam. As reported in The Sun, it appears that his executioners had a few words to say about his impeding fate.

SADDAM Hussein went to Hell with the vicious curses of executioners ringing in his ears, including one who snarled: “God damn you”.

Can't blame these people, who suffered greatly under his despotic regime. They obviously exercised extraordinary self discipline in that Saddam reached the gallows with his head still attached to his shoulders. What surprises me is that the British editors at The Sun seem to believe in an afterlife.

The Iraqis were so delighted at the despot’s demise that immediately after his death they danced a jig around his body as it dangled from the noose. Joining in the outpouring of joy was the masked hangman, guards and even Iraqi officials.

This giddiness was due, no doubt, to the intoxicating effects of the Noose Fairie.

But Saddam had been left in no doubt of the contempt in which he was held in his last few minutes alive. As he prepared to move onto the trap- door of the gallows, one of his guards turned to him and spat out: “God damn you.” The doomed tyrant was heard replying: “God damn you.”

In the exchange with his guards Saddam attempts to justify his war against Iran, which cost a million lives, and laughably proclaims victory against the United States.

One of the guards then shouts: “You have destroyed us. You have killed us. You have made us live in destitution.” Saddam counters: “I have saved you from destitution and misery and destroyed your enemies, the Persians and Americans.”

You wonder what goes through the mind of this proud, arrogant man as he faces eternity. He spared himself and his family from the destitution that he visited upon the rest of the country but yet only survived as a free man by scampering from safe house to safe house and ended up hiding in a hole in the ground. During his regime he surrounded himself with riches, family and sycophants, thereby isolating himself from reality.

Last night we had some friends over to celebrate the New Year. One of them, an Army Chaplain, spent two tours of duty in Iraq. The last tour ended a year ago, he was stationed in Tikrit. He talked about the three palaces he was in; one was the size of a state capitol building and the others were like large hotels. These structures were incredibly opulent - Saddam's monuments to himself.

If Saddam ever realized the devastating effects of his actions on others, he never let on. He seeks this same isolation at the end.

As the hangman prepares to pull the lever to open the trap-door, Saddam chants the Muslim profession of faith. “God is Great and Mohammed is his prophet. Palestine is Arab.”

His last words are: “I bear witness that Mohammed . . . ” It is the beginning of the second verse of the invocation, but before Saddam can complete it the executioner sends him hurtling to his death.

Saddam is seen plunging through the trap-door. As he dropped his neck snapped with an audible crack. According to one witness he died with his eyes open. In the video his corpse is then seen dangling at the end of the rope with his head at a grotesque angle. One onlooker proclaims: “The tyrant has fallen.”

Sic semper tyrannis.