quote:

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Saddam Hussein may be hanged within hours, senior Iraqi officials and the ousted president's defense team said on Friday.

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quote:

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Originally posted by erosomniac:
"it seems it's possible he may be hanged tonight."

<3 ambiguity.

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At least it's definitively ambiguous.
 

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Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
Schroedinger's dictator.
 

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Posted by Bob_Scopatz (Member # 1227) on :
 
CNN just reported he's dead.
 

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Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
Ya know, before the first response had been made to this thread, I typed:
I hope the Iraqi government isn't stupid enough to make a film of the hanging. And smart enough to electronicly enforce a ban against taking in cameras, especially on cellphones.
Cuz any leaked video of the execution would be likely to enhance Saddam's reputation.

Then deleted, feeling that posting the comment woulda been too much like "wishing bad luck" on someone.

Sure 'nuff, the Iraqi leadership was stupid, and someone secretly videoed the hanging with a cellphone or similarly small device.

So now Al Jazeera and al-Arabya have broadcast a "martyrdom tape" of Saddam defying the "...five men in black face masks...acting as guards...chanting religious slogans with the names of Moqtada al Sadr (the head of the [Shi'ite] Mahdi army, accused of organizing death squads against Sunnis)..."

Personally, I believe the audio was altered after the hanging -- too much at political stake for the Iraqi government to allow its own guards to credit Moqtada with the "victory" -- possibly by the one of the broadcasters, both being Sunni operations.

But that don' matter none. The Sunnis who are stupid enough to be insurgents or to volutarily support the insurgency are stupid enough to believe that the tape is true, implies that the Iraqi government secretly supports anti-Sunni death squads.

[ December 31, 2006, 09:10 AM: Message edited by: aspectre ]
 

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Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
 
Still haven't viewed the hanging (the above link leads to a description, not the video). So it may be that my "overdubbing the audio" hypothesis is proved wrong by mouth/etc movements on the video itself and voice analysis of the audio.

Mostly bumping this to post an interesting quote

quote:

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It's not simply Sunni insurgents or Al Qaeda that we’re fighting anymore. Fighting is the wrong term. We’re trying to influence [Iraqis] to operate within the confines of the government.

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