what DO they want from him?

They don't want anything from him except a few good videos displaying a disheveled man, humbled and humiliated. Great PR for the United States. We have won. We have captured the great boogeyman. All of our worries are over. Of course, that's a load of crap as it is very likely Saddam had absolutely NOTHING to do with Sept. 11. Is everyone who stands up to the United States a "rat bastard?" No. But we need someone to feed our hunger for revenge. And he will be forcefeed to Iraq, whether they want to truly consume him or not. To hope for a man's death, to relish his humiliation is vile. Why bother with a trial, which will be a farce? Why not just stick his head on a pole? No doubt, that will be caught on video too.

Jonathan - I think they want the location of those weapons of mass destruction, but I'm starting to doubt the existence of those weapons. But then I was starting to doubt that Saddam would be captured also.

We want any number of things: WMD info, is there an al Qaeda connection, info on the remaining "insurgents," info on the illegal cooperation with his regime by our "friends" and enemies alike, etc. This is critical stuff.

Chris, are you offended by Saddam's "humiliation"? The fucker did it to himself - we didn't put him in the rat hole, we dragged him out. We didn't make him look like a dumpster diver, he did. Should the soldiers have been seen bowing beofre the Great Man? I believe it was critical to show him as he was, what he had become, his true colors.

Assuming he had nothing to do with 9/11, how does that make him any less loathsome, dangerous, and evil? Or isn't he these things?

He's lucky the Americans found him, if it had been the Iraqis, they would have kicked his head down the street playing a little tyrant soccer, AND had it on video.

I agree with you, Eric, on that. What, were they supposed to give him the clean shaving before videotaping him?

If he was all clean cut and reported in a hole, then there undoubtedly would have been people who said that they didn't really find him in a hole and they "cleaned him up" to hide the "abuse" he suffered upon capture.

They did the right thing showing him in the state he was, where he was captured and the process afterwards.

It was a no-win situation for how the video footage was handled as far as the court of public opinion.

Help us find some of that WMD stash, and maybe we'll put off handing you over to Iraqis for six months. You don't want to play? There's a bus for Baghdad leaving tomorrow.

Am I a bad person for having utterly NO sympathy for the personal suffering of this ex-tyrant? Possibly. Yet I can't seem to work up any guilty feelings- none at all.

I don't particularly take glee in his suffering per se. For my part, I'd be happy to just see him goddam shot and done with. On the other hand, keeping him around for awhile seems like good strategery on several counts- and if that involves some suffering for him, I don't care. Brother, you asked for it.

Any benefit that can be had in the world by humiliating, beating or executing this MASS MURDERER is all to the good. We probably don't need to actually physically torture him and it would probably actually work against our interest, but I wouldn't give it a second thought on a moral level if I thought it would accomplish something.

One of the benefits of this war is that we are making an example of Hussein personally. THIS is what you can look forward to if you support terrorists. That's right, your biggest bully in the schoolyard will be hunt down and killed or humiliated, or whatever the US decides to do.

Any questions?

I personally doubt that Hussein has much to offer the coalition or the new Iraqi government. He seems to have some information that has been put to use to apprehend some of the insurgents, but I suspect there are a great many insurgents in central Iraq. I'm not convinced that all of them are personally loyal to Saddam, even though many may be Baathist.

I also read a few months ago about how some Iraqi scientists were capitalizing on his ignorance of technology. They were basically defrauding him about weapons production in Iraq. There is nothing in his history to suggest he is much more than a thug, although his paranoia kept him alive for many years. I suspect the real details of the WMD and the planning of the postwar Iraq is in the hands of his generals and scientists.

He certainly won't have info on ALL of the insurgents and jihadists and general jackasses roaming the countryside, but he would know more than any one other person.

He might not know all the specific relevant WMD stuff, but perhaps he can help us find the specific underlings that do.

And if he doesn't know much, then it'll just be that much less time to have to fool with him before he gets flushed down the toilet of history.

Eric, I have no problem with the Iraqs playing a rollicking game of soccer with Saddam's head. Frankly, such behavior is to be expected from that deeply troubled area of the world. What I have a problem with is using Saddam as a poster boy for all the world to see. It's as if his capture validates our war in Iraq. I was uncomfortably reminded of the videos the Iraq army shot of United States prisoners during the height of the war. And now we are doing the same thing with their leader. Should we not hold ourselves to a higher standard? Dehumanizing him as a "rat bastard" and a "fucker" is exactly how man turns people into things, therefore making it easier to ostracize them (i.e. past treatment of Jews, Native Americans). Then it is much easier to kill these people, or perhaps play soccer with their heads and enjoy the spirited competition (what kind of cleats would one wear for such a game?!). A photograph would have sufficed. Perhaps a less humiliating video. Why lower ourselves to their level, creating additional years of hate, hostility and inhumanity?

An excellent article on interrogation by Mark Bowden, the author of Black Hawk Down.

He could be set up with some beachfront property down in La Jolla, get him a couple of cheerleaders from San Diego State to be his girlfriends, set him up with cable, season tickets to football and baseball, a BMW, golf lessons at a local country club, etc., and before you know it, he will be singing the praises of the US of A. That'll put a crimp in his incipient martyrdom.

The images of Hussein presented after his capture seemed calculated to humiliate him. I am not terribly offended by this. It also seemed to play well domestically. The matter of greater concern is what the Iraqis thought of the images.

The coalition might be able to put Hussein to a better use than pumping him for information, most of which will be useless in a few months. He needs to figure prominently in a substantial propaganda and pacification campaign in Iraq.

Ugh. Hearing how easily people dismiss the value of human life and dignity really scares me. Is Saddam a rutheless thug and mass murderer? Sure. However, treating him like less than a human being doesn't take away his humanity, it lessens ours.

Besides, if he's such an absolutely evil person that he's not deserving of fair treatment, what does that say about the members of our administration who have supported him in the past? Should they have their heads kicked around like soccer balls?

I hope that our govenrment treats him fairly, and I hope he's given a fair trial. For our sake, not his.

Gerrard

These are good points. Hussein should not be tortured or dismembered. I also agree that he should have a trial. I'm not so sure that it is possible for the trial to be fair, as almost no one doubts that he is guilty. Your point about his accomplices in the West and in the Soviet Bloc is correct also.

Well, Gerrard, I guess you're just a little bit morally superior to me. Enjoy it.

What would constitute an UNfair trial for this man? We goddam KNOW what this guy has done. It's not like there's some hint of doubt that he's one of the biggest mass murderers in history. In truth, I don't see how it would be possible to do "injustice" against Saddam. I don't see any good purpose in absolutely torturing him, but he more than deserves it.

I am SO uninterested in jacking off about the "human dignity" of this guy. His particular life is NOT a value. It is utterly, clearly a DISvalue. He's killed a million+ people. That's lives down the drain.

Dispatching this guy constitutes a net PLUS for the valuation of life, beyond any reasonable argument. He has forfeited any possible human consideration 10,000 times over.

If the humiliation of these his last days can be harnessed as a preventive message to others, then that might be considered a VERY MINOR act of restitution for the great wickedness he has perpetrated throughout his life.