Mail Call: Death by Hanging.(Letter to the editor)

Readers of our Jan. 8 cover story on Saddam's death vented their anger at the event. Of the images, one wrote, "Shockingly poor taste." Agreed another, "Like a Qaeda video." A third attributed "the hasty execution to Bush's blessing--Iraq's puppet government does his bidding."

The Execution of Saddam

The United States invaded the sovereign state of Iraq, ostensibly in search of weapons of mass destruction which, as everyone knows, were never found. And now, the puppet government the Americans established has executed Saddam Hussein ("Death of a Tyrant," Jan. 8, 2007). True, Saddam tortured and murdered Iraqi people and used poison gas against the Kurds. But that does not justify the U.S. invasion of Iraq or the execution of its former leader. If the United States is so concerned about the plight of oppressed people in the world, it should invade North Korea and China to save repressed people there. But the crucial difference between Iraq and those two totalitarian countries in Asia is that the former has strategically vital oilfields while neither of the latter do.

Tetsuo Aoki

Yokosuka, Japan

The images of the execution of Saddam Hussein shown on television were in shockingly poor taste. Saddam acted barbarically. But instead of being executed, he could have been sent into exile. As Mahatma Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind." On the eve of the New Year and Eid, these images in the media were most depressing.

Rajendra K. Aneja