Saddam is Dead.
Today we executed a near 70 year old man. A man, once of great power, whom we captured cowering in his underwear in a hole in the ground. A man who, without a doubt, was committed to evil and performed great sins against humankind...
And yet a man who had been neutralized. A man who could have spent his life imprisoned for his crimes.
Today, we executed a near 70 year old man...
For crimes committed by countless others whom we continue to support and keep in power because it is expedient to our wishes. We executed him, like we execute so many others in our own country because we do not believe in God, despite our protestations to the contrary.
No... we do not believe in God.
We believe in vengeance and retaliation.
We believe in political expediency.
We believe in photo opportunities.
We believe in our own righteousness.
We believe in the gallows because we do not believe in grace.
We believe that death solves the problem because we do not believe that Christ overcame death...
Or that, if he did, he did so only for a privileged few that doesn't include Muslims. Especially near 70 year old Muslims caught cowering in their underwear in a hole in the ground because he realized that the gig was up and vengeance was at hand.
Saddam went to the gallows with a copy of the Quran in his hands. I wonder if the executioner did the same... carried to the gallows whatever holy book gives him comfort and strength.
I wonder if our Christian president bothered to take up his Bible and pray at all yesterday while awaiting news of the death his machinations had wrought against a near 70 year old man.
Today I got a note from a friend wondering if we ought to pray for Saddam in church this weekend.
Pray for your enemies and those who persecute you.
Those who live by the sword shall perish by it.
Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.
But what do we care. The biggest fear we have when it comes to executing a near 70 year old man is whether his death will lead to more violence against us. Or whether, in an age of lies and deceit, we dare show a video of the execution to the world for fear people won't believe he's really dead. How graphic should the news dare to be?
It really is, after all, just a question of taste.
An evil man has died on the gallows, but a man nonetheless.
At our Christian hands.
And in the scheme of things, the cycle of violence continues with no end in sight...
Because we do not trust God nor God's justice.
Our own petty tyrant is more convincing than the petty tyrant just dispatched.
We will hear about our savage victim over the next several days:
How afraid he was.
How resigned he was.
How pathetic he was.
"I saw fear... he was afraid." "It was strange... he just gave up."
He was near 70 years old.
And his death will not quench our leader's thirst.
Nor ours.
Just another dead Muslim.
Caught in a hole in the ground in his underwear.
And I swear...
I just heard someone laugh.
- punkmonksf's blog
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Well, this is just stilly.
Give me a break here - but, this is just silly. God himself has
over and over used other nations including Israel itself to execute
his judgment on other peoples and nations. Scripture is full of
his vengence poured out this way and many is the time in scripture
too that Israel was on the receiving end of it as well.
I don't laugh that the man died - it's a tragic that it had to
happen but remember the verse that you quoted about vengence being
the Lord's - well I dare say (boldly so!) that God took his
vengence on this personificaton of evil via a court of the man's
own people and the end of a hangmans rope.
Case closed guys - God took his vengence. Now, leave it at that
accept it and move on - it's done and you can't change it.
dear punkmomksf
I am grateful to read of your compassion and wonder how did you feel-that is- if you saw the video clip of President Bush a few years back when a reporter asked:
"Did you pray for Sadaam before bombing Baghdad?"
Bush got the deer in the headlight look in his eyes and stumbled over a few words,
but then admitted he had NOT prayed for his enemy.
The night the USA bombed Baghdad as I grieved for the innocent caught in the crossfire
this verse from the 11th century came to me:
"God responds speedily whenever the blood of innocence is being shed. Of this the angel choirs are singing and re-echoing their praise. And yet at the loss of innocence clouds are weeping."-Hildegard of Bingen
For Christmas gifts I import olive oil from Taybeh, the last remaining self-sufficient Christian community in the West Bank.
The Christian workers wrap every bottle of the first press virgin oil in Arabic newspaper then pack it in cardboard.
I unwrap the bottles from their cardboard casing but leave the colorful Arabic newsprint which serves nicely as CHRISTmas wrap.
One of the bottles had a cut out picture of Sadaam taped to the neck of the olive oil bottle.
The second I saw it, I thought of President Bush's neglecting to pray for his enemy and repented for him.
I am visiting my Congressional Reps. in DC on January 29 after marching for Peace and Justice in the streets of DC on January 27.
As an olive branch of reconciliation to the hawks in USA government, I am delivering the Sadaam bottle of olive oil to Congress January 29th.
dear punkmonksf, maybe you can join we the people for Peace and Justice in DC and share your compassion?
http://unitedforpeace.org/
Eileen Fleming,
Celtic Christian of The Beatitudes, agitator church, state, and limp MSM,
Activist, poet, author creative spiritual literature, historical fiction and my memoirs from OPT
Reporter and Editor of http://www.wearewideawake.org/