Our View
The video showing last week's execution of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein seems to have taken on a life of its own. Few of us were surprised that execution videos would make their way onto the Internet and to television stations.
Little if anything escapes the capture of digital cameras, be they on cell phones or tucked into a pocket. A comedian's racial tirade is captured by a night club patron. A fight at Norman North High School a few weeks ago was reportedly captured on a cell phone camera.
An Iraqi prosecutor told the Associated Press that he witnessed two Iraqi government officials using camera phones at the hanging. Millions of viewers have watched the hanging on the Internet. The executioners appear to torment Mr. Hussein and used the event as a rallying cry for their own political leaders.
Two guards and an official who supervised the execution were arrested Wednesday. The White House declined to comment on the execution fuss, only to say Iraq was a sovereign nation and President Bush is focusing on the new way forward in Iraq.
Mr. Hussein received poor treatment and the recording of the execution is inexcusable but it pales in comparison to the thousands of Iraqis he tortured and murdered during his regime. Testimony at Mr. Hussein's criminal trial revealed his fellow countrymen being fed into a meat grinder while still alive, poison gas dropped on entire villages and rampant kidnappings and rapes.
