Is this really how we wish to remember 2006 coming to an end? Through a trap door on a gallows?

No! Thanks to many conversations with my brother Richard in Connecticut over the past year, I decided not to put the grainy video of the hanging (taken with an anonymous soul's cellphone from below the gallows) on this blogsite, but the photo and brief transcript of the last moments in the "execution room" tell it all, I think.



[Saddam] Oh God.

[Voices] May God's blessings be upon Muhammad and his household.

[Voices] And may God hasten their appearance and curse their enemies.

[Voices] Moqtada [Al-Sadr]...Moqtada...Moqtada.

[Saddam] Do you consider this bravery?

[Voice] Long live Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr.

[Voice] To hell.

[Voice] Please do not. The man is being executed. Please no, I beg you to stop.

[Saddam] There is no God but Allah and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God. There is no God but Allah and I testify that Muhammad...

At this point the video stops and the sound of the trapdoors opening is heard in the background.

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I may be totally opposed to capital punishment, but have to admit that his execution did surely end a long and torturous era for Iraq and the world.

But the war and horrors in Iraq go on anyway ... as the band plays on.