The Saddam Hussein Execution Show: A Nine Year Old Boy is Dead

We don't do it. We don't watch television. We don't read tabloids. We are much better than that. We scoff at the news as sensationalist entertainment disguised as the dissemination of information, and we rail against the paparazzi.

We prefer the better things in life. We like to curl up with a good book, take long walks, and go to church on Sundays. We volunteer our time to the local soup kitchen each Thanksgiving and to the Special Olympics come springtime.

We don't buy those magazines, and we certainly do not surf the Internet for information about the latest scandals. We were disgusted by the OJ Simpson book and television deal, and we were revolted, I repeat, revolted by the footage of the hanging of Saddam Hussein that was broadcasted across the Internet and, in some countries, on television. I think Eugene Robinson of The Washington Post put it best, when he wrote "it's history as snuff film."

So, who do we hold responsible for the New Year's Eve hanging death of 9-year-old Mubashar Ali in Pakistan? His parents? That is the correct answer, if you ask Rahim Yar Khan district police chief Sultan Ahmad. Parental negligence, he called it, "an accident which happened due to the carelessness of parents."

Mubashar Ali died December 31, 2006 when he and his older sister, 10, attempted to imitate the execution of Saddam Hussein by attaching a rope to a ceiling fan at one end and tying the other around Ali's neck. The parents and aunt of the children were only yards away, in an adjoining room. They believed the children were playing.

They were correct. The children had been watching the most popular television program in Pakistan that day, the Saddam Hussein execution show. They watched the interactive nature of the proceedings: the stadium-like cheering, the jeering from the good guys, the defiance of the villain, and the intriguing allure of the hooded hangman. Right there, safe in the comfort and safety of their own home, they then witnessed the hanging of Saddam Hussein. And then it was time for the children to turn off the television and to go off and play.