Saddam Hussein...Justice or Revenge?

It's hard to look at the way Saddam Hussein's death sentence was carried out and look at it as "justice". Not just because he was hung but the additional initial reports of chanting and dancing around his dead body lend more to the idea of revenge than carrying out justice for the victims of those who have died. Brutality and hatred creating brutality and hatred isn't really justice. Disrespect of a corpose even Saddam's corpse will breed more hatred, more desires for revenge.

Here in the US, hanging is not the way the majority of death penality cases are handled, nor is it done with people chanting or dancing around the dead body. While I'm not a fan of the death penalty in the majority of the cases in the US when it is carried thru it is done humanely, because it is supposed to be about justice.

On April 13, 1961, U.S. Army Private John A. Bennett was hanged after being convicted of rape and attempted murder, he appears to be the last person to face a death penalty by the Army by hanging.

Lest we convince ourselves we are totally more civilized...

Washington and New Hampshire still retain hanging as an option. Delaware changed in 1996 to lethal injection, except for those convicted prior to 1986 who were sentenced to hanging, convicts were allowed to choose lethal injection. Since the hanging of Billy Bailey, no Delaware prisoner meets this requirement. In New Hampshire if it be found to be impractical to carry out the punishment of death by lethal injection, then the condemned will be hanged.

In 1996, Billy Bailey was hung, and it had been 50 years since Delaware had hung someone.

Yet again we go back to the manner in which the death penalty was served and the care that was taken even when the death was to be by hanging...

With as many people as have died realistically if it would have all ended by hanging Saddam then you could do the whole "the ends justify the means" type of a scenario. However very few seem to be feeling that way.

As an update, I hope after discovering this guy was totally full of it:

Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie. "He was a broken man," al-Rubaie said. "He was afraid. You could see fear in his face."

Let's hope the US never believes anything that particular advisor...