Not so long ago, the death of Saddam Hussein would have been greeted in many parts of the world - not least Iraq - with a mixture of relief and, for some, outright joy.
It is a measure of the impact of the mobile phone-recorded video chronicling the hanging of the Iraqi dictator, complete with sectarian taunts by onlookers, that it is now difficult to find anyone completely happyat the manner of his demise.
Among Iraqis, both in the country and in exile, even those whose families suffered under Saddam's rule, feelings are distinctly mixed.
At the Healing Iraq blog, underneath a round-up of Iraqi reaction, poster Zeyad is scathing about the fact that the name of Shia militant Moqtada al-Sadr was chanted as Saddam waited to be hanged:
"It utterly disgusts me that Sadr's supporters have infiltrated every level of the state, and that the witnesses, including Iraqi government officials, have made this look like a sectarian issue. They were doomed to repeat Iraqi history by hanging their former oppressor and labelling it as justice."
The Baghdad-based 24 Steps to Liberty blog, was similarly bitter:
"Iraqis will always remember how, just a few seconds before he was hanged, he laughed when some men in the room chanted 'Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada'. Even in his last moments, the tyrant pissed off the oppressed! What a life we lived under Hussein's rule and what a life we are living now!"
Sentiments in the United States have turned in a parallel direction. Many rightwing bloggers who exulted in Saddam's death have become far more muted now the circumstances of his execution have been downloaded and viewed by hundreds of thousands of people around the world.
Others, like the Myleftwing blog, are angry:
"I'm by no means defending Saddam Hussein. But what I did think is this: only in Iraq could a murderous tyrant be turned into a martyr, and his victims be turned into an angry lynch mob. But this thinking quickly evolved into a larger paradigm: that the botched execution of Saddam Hussein is a microcosm of the futility of invading Iraq in the first place."
California-based The Paper Tiger was simply bleak after viewing the video:
"It is a profoundly depressing piece of history. A number of commentators have remarked on its similarity to the al-Qaida beheading videos, and I would have to agree."
