Comments by the country’s acting Prime Minister, nominal deputy PM John Prescott, on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
Frankly, to get this kind of recorded messages coming out is totally unacceptable and I think whoever is involved and responsible for it should be ashamed of themselves.
Unacceptable? Shameful? Sir, this is the modern world and you’ll have to get used to it. You can’t command the tide to turn. And I simply don’t believe the countless thousands of people searching for (and finding) blogs and other websites carrying the raw footage will feel the slightest bit ashamed.
Besides, if you send your troops into a country with the (explicit or implicit) aim of overthrowing the regime, and having done so you hand over the former head of state to the local authorities, who enforce the death penalty, which was always on the local statue book… then, er, at the very least you’re an accessory to the killing.
Responses
It’s a strange day when I’m an apologist for 2-Jags, but surely there’s a whole world of difference between the manner in which the hanging tookplace (and the dubious political and moral/ethical reasons for publishing the video) and people viewing the footage once it’s been produced.
Just because you *can* download something from the internet doesn’t mean you *should*.
I read Prezzer’s comments as being an attack on the way the hanging was carried out, ie with the yelling of abuse between Saddam and his executors and witnesses, rather than specifically having a go at those viewing the footage.