More Crocodile Tears

I don't really recall ever reading any Associated Press stories delving into the minutiae of the methods used by Saddam Hussein to murder hundreds of thousands of people. I don't recall an overly large amount of coverage into all that cruelty. But my, oh, my is there an enormous volume of crocodile tears being generated over the hanging of Saddam and his henchmen.

In such judicial hangings, the victims are typically dropped a distance greater than their height through a trapdoor. At this point, the rope becomes rigid, and the force of the noose should break the victim's neck, causing immediate paralysis and unconsciousness.

The procedure causes a classic "hangman's fracture" — a break between the head and the neck, effectively snapping the upper cervical spine. In most cases, the victim dies of asphyxiation.

Though nobody really knows how long it takes a person to die from hanging, experts say it is probably anywhere from a few seconds to a couple of minutes.

In judicial hangings, as opposed to suicides, there is significant damage to the spinal cord. If the victims fall more than the prescribed distance, they may even pick up enough speed that the noose itself decapitates them, as happened Monday to the former Iraqi dictator's half brother Barzan Ibrahim. In rare cases, intense fear can cause the victim to die of cardiac arrest.

"Hanging is a very cruel way of killing people," said Harold Hillman, an expert in executions who teaches at the University of Surrey. "The fracture obstructs their breathing, and they are left gasping for breath."

The rope pretty effectively obstructs their breathing, I'd wager. The headline of this article informs us that hangings are meant to kill efficiently. They did. And for all the "cruelty" it was still rather more merciful than the trio who were executed were to their victims.