Headline of the Day
Posted on January 16th, 2007 in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
Aide Says U.S. Won’t Yield 2 to Iraq to Hang without a Plan
âThe New York Times, January 15, 2024
Apparently the plan was to decapitate Saddam Hussein’s half-brother Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti.
Which begs the morbid question: What would we ever send 20,000 more troops and hundreds of millions of additional dollars to prop up a government so incompetent, it can’t even manage an executionâtwice?
3 Responses
1/16/2007 11:25 am
Well at least Saddam’s half-brother isn’t the “head” of the secret police anymore!
1/16/2007 6:15 pm
It seems that a “successful” hanging is not quite as easy as one might think. The aim is to avoid a long drawn out stranglation (especially with the victim still conscious), yet not have the victim drop so far that the noose might cause decapitation. For an account of how hangings work and the imprecise calculations that are needed to avoid decapitation in each instance, see article in Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2153186/
1/17/2007 1:57 am
For an interesting digression on other aspects of hanging, featuring an Asian man who found a very creative use for a John Deere tractor and a new take on the death of INXS front man Larry Hutchence, go to http://www.rotten.com/library/sex/autoerotic-asphyxiation/.