Executed

BBC

It was only nine o'clock in the evening in Crawford but George Bush was already embedded in the land of nod, with orders not to be woken until the morning. The blithe indifference of deep slumber was the final snub to the dead man who once described himself as "Salahadin II", "the Redeemer of all the Arabs" and "the Lion of Baghdad".

Indeed, the man once dubbed by the west as 'the Iraqi strongman' before he became less of a middle-eastern tool.

Shortly thereafter the White House issued a pre-prepared written statement: "Today Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial - the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime."

A fair trial, in an occupied country?

President Bush and his advisers have always liked to compare the birth pangs of Iraqi democracy to the emergence of a free Germany after the World War II. Bloodletting But what they were dealing with was not Germany 1945 but Germany in 1648 emerging from the feudal bloodbath of the 30 years war. Another example would have been Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Al Jazeera

For some Iraqi Kurds, the execution was a "fair decision" regardless of timing, though it has dashed hopes of justice for crimes against them. Saddam was due to face charges against Iraqi Kurds during a second trial in what is known as the Anfal, or "spoils of war", campaign. This was due to resume next month.

Is that democratic justice? Perhaps the people in charge couldn't risk the truth about US-Iraqi relations being discussed in court.

And now what of the man who - apparently - was really behind the September 11th 2001 attacks, namely Bin Laden?

Of god

So, here we go again for the big debate on wether there is a creator or wether science can explain all. Recently, I came to the conclusion, that faith is a personal matter which can not and need not be proven. I believed that would be a definition which would please hard core atheists, sceptics such as myself as well as believers in a creator. I also thought it would be a good way of diffusing differences in a heated argument on the subject, a subject on which neither side is ever willing to cede ground. This is not necessarily the case, though, as I found out talking to a muslim believer the other day. Our discussion was fairly amicable and we parted on friendly terms both pleased to have been able to exchange our thoughts. We were, however, both right, and determined to have the last word. I say that, but I remain unconvinced as to how anyone can be 'right' on this issue. The man assured me, that the existence of a creator could be proven, if not scientifically, at least philosophically in the sense, that everything we see around us, everything material must come from somewhere, someone or something must have created it. Sure, I said, but who created the creator? Here, he said, I was thinking in materialistic terms when I should have been thinking outside the material sphere. Problem is, he was using a spiritual creator to 'explain' the origin of the material world. I respect him for making a difference between scientific and philosophical proof, but in fact it comes to the same thing as the scientist I saw on the news recently arguing, that schools should be open to teaching about creationism as a scientific theory simply because nothing disproves it. As far as I know schools don't usually teach a theory unless it has actually already been proven (though perhaps education systems tend to accept 'proven' theories a little to easily). In the end, I believe I am still right in saying faith is personal and proof has no role in it. Of course, we may never know everything about where we come from. Of course, it doesn't seem to make any sense to say we appeared out of nothing, and yet it makes no more sense to say some non-material being created us, since the question remains: where does that being come from? For all of us who are not scientists, belief in a creator is as valid as belief in the idea, that the world came out of nothing. When I say 'belief', I really mean 'theory'. None of us know, however, who the creator is, why he/she/it created us, and what we were created for. That all belongs to the domain of faith, and should not be imposed as fact. Neither the Bible, the Qu'ran , the Torah or any other holy book can be seen as anything more than legend. They are certainly not proof. Some people may think their after-life depends on them praying regularly to their god and imposing their beliefs on others, but they run the risk of being utterly mistaken and reaching death having wasted their lives and the lives of others in the process. This is why for me faith should remain a theory and/or a personal matter. There is so much to say on this subject, and I am sure I am far from having written everything I could write. If anyone is interested in continuing the debate, please leave a message!