Guards taunted Saddam in final seconds

Saddam may have been a brutal dictator and may have deserved the death penalty, but the way his execution has been carried out has made me lose what little sympathy I had for the Iraqis -- I don't mean the innocent Iraqis caught in the crossfire, but the insurgents who are fighting each other and the American occupation. The bottom line is that these guys have no sense of nation or patriotism; only sectarian and tribal loyalties matter to them. If these guys don't care about their own country, why should the rest of the world give a damn when Iraq implodes?

Compare this sordid affair with the way the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa managed to put the bad blood behind them and move on. The difference is that they had a Nelson Mandela with the moral authority to pull it off; here we have just a bunch of vengeful killers.