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The death of Saddam will do nothing to improve the lives of the Iraqi people.
Though he committed horrible crimes, I am not a believer in "eye for an eye".
In taking his life and in such a barbaric way as hanging, the people who condemn him become no better than him.
I do not feel sorry for his death because he was likely beyond redemption and to some extent deserved to die, but deep down I felt it was wrong. I do live in a country that was one of the first in Europe to abolish the death penalty so that probably makes me biased.
I also have to say that it's shameful the way the images of Saddam's death were shown on public TV and made available on the internet in full.
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Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others' dreams.
Fernando Pessoa, 1918
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