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Execution timing – a religious debate

Here's where we stand on the timing of Saddam Hussein's execution…It is no longer a legal debate, now it's a religious debate.

On Thursday, the main conflict over Saddam's execution centered on one question: Does the president need to authorize it?

This question has bogged down Iraqi politicians all week. On Friday an Iraqi judge who will oversee the execution said the question has been resolved. He told me the president has written a letter saying that his signature is not required on the death warrant.

But today there's a new dispute -- religion.

The Muslim Eid (feast of the sacrifice) begins on Saturday for Sunnis. But it starts on Sunday for Shiites. It is customary in Iraq not to carry out executions over religious holiday.

If the Shiite-led government carries out the execution tomorrow, they would not be executing Saddam during "their Eid," holiday but during the "Sunni Eid." It would be insensitive, and could be provocative.

Options under consideration:

- Execute Saddam tonight before Eid

- Execute him tomorrow – which could be seen as the Shiite government effectively saying to the Sunnis, "we don't care."

- Or wait until after the Eid holiday.

Waiting would also give more time to fully "settle" the legal disputes.

Tonight the debate remains unresolved.

The pieces are all in place.

The order could come at any time.

The judge who will attend the execution is on standby, waiting by the phone.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is meeting NOW to decide on the timing......

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54 COMMENTS

God did not even intervene to kill Cain before his day of judgment.

Vengance is His - not ours. They should have simply exhiled him. He's getting old. He's getting weak. And while his ideologies could very have been passed on by those who "already subscribe to it." All killing him does is turn man against man, yet again. His ideals grow - and he still ends up dieing.

All we've done "successfully" throughout all of history is perpetuate the eating of a single apple.

We're not going to break that pattern; it's going to break us. Anyone with a science background, chaos theory, self-sustaining-systems, self-healing-systems understands the nature of a single change to the harmonic pattern over time.

People in science ask for proof of God in a manner they can understand. That's one. Here's another:
Don't eat pork. Why? Because swine eat waste. You start consuming waste-eaters and you end up in deep-****. A divine law - with entirely justifiable scientific reasoning.

A few things:

To Gary Lewis, In actuality quite a few people were put to justice for the tragedies that occured during the civil rights movements and before. The civil war alone was one of the prices that was paid for ever condoning slavery, to name one out of hundreds.

It seems that President Bush would have been damned no matter what he did. If he had gone to Africa who knows what Iraq would have been doing now. While it was not positive that he possessed any 'WMDs' he made no secret of his wanting them, and bluffed his way to make people believe that he did. Who can say where he would be in that quest now, or who he would have made friends with? Who can say if there would have been any other uprisings and mass killings if he were still in power?

No one can, so it's easy to judge President Bush for his choice of which country to go after. But I bet money that 80% of us would make the same decision if we knew of 5-6 countries that were ran by evil tyrants. We would pick the one that was:
A) Of Economical importance.
B) Has a strategic geographical position

Unlike everyone who is enthralled by the UN and the "Global Community" may believe, it is our country's interests that we have to look after and protect first and foremost.

So if you were Bush, would you pick the country that A) Had oil
B) was next door to Iran (Our real enemy)
C) Had an evil dictator
D) Had also tried to kill your father
E) Had interest in obtaining (if not having) WMDS
And the list goes on...but in interest of briefness:

Or would you choose Sudan
A) Has oil
B) Has no strategic location or value
C) Is in the middle of a civil war already (You know, that thing that everyone wants us not to be a part of in Iraq?)

I'm not a blind Bush supporter, nor am I even really a Republican, I don't hate that we chose to go into Iraq, only how it was planned, sold to America, and carried out.

http://tlocfym.blogspot.com

Religion????Saddam had no God in his heart,otherwise he would'nt have murdered and mamed thousands of people.I never in my entire life thought that I would be glad to see someone die,until now.He got what he deserved although he did'nt suffer the way he should have and he can never,ever hurt anyone again.May he spend his eternity,"Down Under".

i just wanted to say that saddam hussein didn't deserve to die like he did, even though he may have killed others but i don't know if thats true because he didn't have a fair trail, these days can we trust anyone? But i rate him for standing there looking so brave, i can't imagen any other primeminister standing there and waiting for death they probably cry! he didn't cry that proves he wasn't a broken man. i mean Gorge Bush killed and is probably killing now how would i know? so does he deaserve to get executed?? he should stick with his country.

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