Hello Everyone,



I have not put the usual picture up as far too many pictures have been published and disseminated on this subject already.



Pardon me for pointing this one out, but as far as I am concerned, public executions were outlawed in this country nearly 200 years ago. Yet over the past day or so, we have seen the death of another human being televised time and time again.



Now, let me make this very clear from the start - Portia is/was no fan of Saddam Hussein - he was a murderous brute who richly deserved locking up and throwing away the key.



However, just because Mr Hussein was a murderous brute does not mean that we in the UK and the so-called civilised world have to sink to his level and actually witness the death of another human being as we sit cosily on our sofas watching the television.



The Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party in the UK, Sir Menzies Campbell, summed it up pretty well as far as I am concerned. He said that a person's final moments are an intensely private matter and to televise such moment is grossly offensive to anyone with any pretensions to humanity. It is true that Mr Hussein sent thousands of people to their deaths, but in sharing in the disgraceful media circus surrounding his own death - who are we to call ourselves any better than he?



In his final words from the scaffold, Mr Hussein stated that he had been a fighter and a political activist all his life and that he had no fear of death. A political activist like Mr Hussein would know that a show of bravery in the face of death would obliterate the images we all carry in our minds of the atrocities he committed during his life.



Since he was pulled out his fox hole near Tikrit, Mr Hussein has been orchestrating his own death and his own immortality. His behaviour on the scaffold was that of a man seeking to surround himself with an aura of heroism.



It seems that Hussein has managed to craftily achieve his own immortality - the media and each of us who has watched those videos have given the man the oxygen of publicity at the moment of death.



Each and every one of us who has taken part has played our part in creating a very dangerous martyr.







Portia