Well hanging is quick and simple and leaves the body there to be seen by others I suppose. Can't really say too easily as I'm not an expert in execution methods.
Chopping the head off is quick and simple. Hanging is only quick if it breaks their neck, otherwise they get strangled to death. Unless Robin Hood appears in time.
I like it how our government who is against the death penalty and usually becomes involved when a 'briton' is sentenced to death in a foreign land, has welcomed the death sentence in this case. Didn't they criticise the talaban for having the death penalty?
The irony is that while the occupying forces are engineering the execution of the hard man they put in place back in the seventies to hold the country together, they are looking around increasingly desperately for a hard man who could hold the country together...
I'm with Jon on this: If murdering innocent civilians in pursuit of your personal or political aims is a hanging offence (and though I can't condone capital punishment, it seems to me that it's as good a candidate as any), then I can draw no distinction that would send Hussein to the gallows and allow Bush and Blair to walk.
In some respects I regard them as even more evil, or at least more cynical. Hussein made no attempt to conceal that fact that he was a self-serving, murdering shit. Bush & Blair wrapped themselves in flags and righteous indignation whilst covertly phosphor-bombing civilians. It's somehow even worse that they made such a bollocks of achieving their desired ends.
And has anyone noticed how when westerners are 'captured' they're called hostages, yet when coalition forces capture someone they're called prisoners of war or terrorist suspects? Whats the difference between a hostage and a prisoner anyway?