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Mussolini and Saddam



We're getting a lot of finger wagging and tsk-tsking over Saddam's execution. Over him being taunted. Over video being posted of his execution. Let's contrast this with the execution of Mussolini. Mussolini was a far milder tyrant than Saddam. His treatment was far more brutal. And yet it was understood that this was right. The contrast to today, largely promoted by a treasonous media, is why we're losing the War on Terror.

The same press that whines over terrorists at Gitmo being "incensed" because an interrogator squatted over a Koran or a female interrogator touching her fingers to a terrorist thus in his mind making him unclean, are the same ones who lead the howl fest over Abu Ghaib and now over Saddam's execution. Mind you these same reporters couldn't get at all worked up over Saddam's genocides. As usual their sympathy is with the enemy.

Let's look back to WW2. Mussolini was captured, executed and hang upside down at a gas station. Extensive photos of it were taken and published. Here is a reprinted article from the period on what happened. Note the lack of whiny condemnations, calls for a more civilized execution, for him to have been spared or condemnation over the way he was treated.

"The Italian partisans have carried out swift justice on Mussolini and other Fascist leaders. They have been shot and their bodies have been exhibited in public squares in Como and Milan. The executions were apparently carried out near Como by shooting in the back...Meanwhile the Allied advances are going on with striking rapidity, and it was officially announced from Rome last night that our troops have entered Venice and Milan.

This is the first conspicuous example of mob justice in liberated Italy. Otherwise the partisans have been kept well under control by their leaders. The opinion expressed this morning by the partisan C.-in-C., General Cadorna, son of the former field marshal, was that such incidents in themselves were regrettable. Nevertheless, in this case, he considered the execution a good thing, since popular indignation against the Fascists demanded some satisfaction. The risk of a protracted trial, such as has been taking place in Rome, was thus avoided.

Milan radio said that a large crowd gathered in Piazza Loreto to see the bodies, 18 in number. It was here that the Fascists recently murdered 15 patriots. The radio, describing the scene, said "From the entrance of the Piazza it is impossible to move because the crowd is so great. It is interesting to see the hate, the fury of those around Mussolini. People spit upon the body, but that is only a continuation of the justice he should have suffered. He died too quickly. "One woman shot five times into the body saying: 'Five shots for my five assassinated sons.' All approve and want more. They want the bodies to stay there for six months, and that is not enough. Never has so much hate, rancour, and thirst for vengeance been seen. This is justice. This is a good example and it will be followed by others."

Comments

  1. Excellent post, and I'm glad you included the photos along with the reprint of the original article. Straight news reporting with a clear indication of the prepetrator and his crimes and the victims.

    There's too little of it in today's media. Far more often than not we get sermonizing from bleeding heart liberals than straight news--the who, what, where, why and how.

    The genuine horror of the war crimes are diluted.

    I wonder if the ghastly torture of Saddam's victims--if videotaped--would get the same degree of sympathy from these reporters? Would these reporters dare to listen to the blood curdling screams?

    BTW, that is by far the worst aspect of the beheading videos. The pleas for mercy that are ignored and screams during the crimes themselves are agonizing to listen to. I dare these reporters to listen to them, watch the victims and then show regard and sympathy for those responsible.

    I dare them.

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  2. CNN admitted to covering up some of Saddam's crimes to maintain good relations with the regime

    then there was dan rather's repulsive interview with Saddam before the war

    the New York Times gave Saddam a larger orbituary than former President Gerald Ford

    http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/critiques/CNNs_Iraqi_Cover-Up.asp

    http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2081652&

    As Baghdad fell last week, CNN announced that it too had been liberated. On the New York Times' op-ed page on Friday, Eason Jordan, the network's news chief, admitted that his organization had learned some "awful things" about the Baathist regime--murders, tortures, assassination plots--that it simply could not broadcast earlier. Reporting these stories, Mr. Jordan wrote, "would have jeopardized the lives of Iraqis, particularly those on our Baghdad staff."

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  3. While I would never want to see a reporter injured, that risk goes with the job (the same as with being a police officer). Such journalistic cowardice is an insult to the memory of journalists such as Daniel Pearl.

    I think it has less to do with genuine risks than political views of the individual war correspondents and the news agenices they work for.

    Iraqis on the Baghdad staff...hmmm. Iraqi stringers?

    Sigh.

    In cases such as these, I believe news agencies and media outlets really need to broadcast the truth, as gutwrenching and horrible as it is.

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  4. Where oh where are the war correspondents of old? The guys who scrammbled through the jungles of Vietnam without protective vests with hand held cameras? Who didn't worry about upsetting sensitive viewers with their gritty coverage of young men being shot to pieces? The guys who refused to be embedded at the cost of having the military or any media agenda controlling what they could report?

    The reporters who felt truth was a higher and nobler cause?

    The reporters in Africa who daily face kidnapping and murder just for reporting?

    Whether in the US or abroad, whether in a very high risk situation or low risk situations, who valued truth above all else, no matter who's tender toes get stepped on? No matter how many self righteous "I am outraged" people complain?

    Pseudonyms for the print media are fine. The offer protection from political harassment. Absolutely. But selling out the truth (facts) is another matter entirely.

    The truth is important enough for journalists in Africa and third world countries to risk their lives but in the Western world most of our journalists only want to be tv stars. In fact, many journalism programs at colleges are now called Mass Communications--and that's what they're all about. Communicating to the masses. Truth? eh.

    And something to remember--sometimes the truth of a situation cannot be ascertained immediately. In that case, a reporter's job (as in the article printed here) facts are essential. Straight reporting.


    Slightly OT--I watched an interview on Dennis Wholey with Gore Vidal on his new book, Point to Point Navigation (not plug for the book. The title he said, came from a process he had to rely on while in the navy in a particularly murky area. Ships literally had to nagivage from one point to another without ever seeing the entire map or area. Journalists could learn alot from that.

    He also said that lying should be a capital offense because once the tongue starts lying it cannot stop and does result in great harm.

    The same can be said of corrupt journalists who sell out the truth/facts for any reason.

    okay, I'm done. Thank you :)

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  5. Saddam deserved to be hung like Mussolini. It was disgusting that he wasn't.

    It amazes me how people think someone who cruelly tortured people to death should be given a polite execution. It makes about as much sense as when the US told Iraq what day they were coming to invade.

    Nothing like living in an era of morons. :]

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  6. it wouldn't be too bad living among morons all they were was stupid. Then they'd at least provide entertainment. But these guys are evil as well as stupid.

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  7. Anonymous9/1/07

    But not too stupid to know their evil. :] Especially saddam. He knew he was evil and thrived on it. That was something they really emphasized last week on the History Channel.

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  8. It's as though their souls have been blow torched out of them. Or maybe they were born that way. I'm not sure which.

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  9. people make their choices

    mis-education can be blamed for some things and certainly it warps the worldview of many people who come through college and get their information from the media

    but at the end of the day an adult human being should still be able to tell right from wrong

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  10. Absolutely. But even here society has given them an escape route of sorts for that still small voice of conscience that would tell them the difference between right and wrong. The turn such decisions into matters of positive or negative, what benefits me versus what doesn't benefit me. Positive versus negative.

    Rarely in any discourse are the terms right and wrong used. The alternation of language is effecting decisions of conscience and inherent understandings of right and wrong.

    Then again they could understand perfectly well and just not care.

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