I'm conflicted. Not over Saddam's death, really. Such a man, who has taken so many lives, deserves a terrible fate. Were he not killing his own people, the word for his mass murdering would be "genocide." His Stalin-esque style of tyranny was twisted and sick.

At the same time, I can't bear to watch the news coverage. When I heard they had showed his death on national television I felt ill. Death is a frightening thing, to me. To exist one moment and the next be a lifeless doll truly scares me. I wonder if it's wrong to be so sickened by death, yet believe Saddam deserved the fate he met.

Am I being hypocritical, then? In that I wouldn't pull the hangman's switch, but I think he deserved death? I don't feel like I'm acting out of some bloodlust, nor do I think my presumption that man's justice should dictate life and death is somehow playing God. But at the same time, I couldn't do it myself. Perhaps it's hypocrisy; maybe it's just respect for death itself.