Saddam is dead. Executed.
First, I’m opposed to capital punishment. Period.
Second, just what Iraq needs: A high-profile martyr to rally around and provide reason for an even more massive explosion of violence than we’ve already seen.
PAD
Saddam is dead. Executed.
First, I’m opposed to capital punishment. Period.
Second, just what Iraq needs: A high-profile martyr to rally around and provide reason for an even more massive explosion of violence than we’ve already seen.
PAD
• 
PAD,
why are you oppsed to Capital punishment? this man killed thousands of people, sureley he deserves death.
if a person killed and tortured one of your children or your wife, would want that person executed and pay for the crime?
Joe V.
sorry, it should have read
“wouldn’t you want”.
Joe V.
I don’t mind this. While I know there are sometimes errors with capital punishment, there is no doubt about the artocities that he did (unless it’s like the end of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and a Hussein double was executed while the main man pretends to be his own double.)
As for Hussein as a martyr, I don’t think so. He was such a notorious secularist that Bin Laden refused to work with him, and Hussein was caught hiding in a hole, not going down in a blaze of glory. Martyrs are willing to die for their cause (and somteimes hope to); Hussein tried to sneak away.
I wasn’t too cheerful about the news either. Something about taking pleasure in the demise of another human being… not really my thing. I mean, what’s the point of killing him? He was caught!
And now he’s free. Oh well.
This has been very peculiar for me watching the lead up to all of this.
I’ve never been die-hard anti-death penalty. I can envisage many situations where I think it is justified to kill a person. But I do remember being impressed with Illinois governor George Ryan’s decision to commute the sentences of everyone on death row, saying “I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death”, effectively that he’s not God and therefore is not qualified to make decisions on who should live and who should die.
That impressed me because here it was coming from someone who had previously supported the death penalty, and during the course of carrying it out came to an epiphany that changed his perspective. And his reasoning behind it, chiefly that the death penalty is fundamentally wrong because A) Rich defendants have a better chance at saving their lives with fancy lawyers and B) Even the chance that you could get it wrong, and death isn’t something you can take back.
So that’s the point where I began to think, okay, maybe whatever we get from this isn’t worth the potential moral cost to ourselves.
Today kind of solidified that feeling, not because of who the defendant was, but because of the surrounding circumstances. We see killing going on there every day. It’s not stopping. Where’s the perspective on this? I see the media treating this as one more celebrity event. I think that strips us of our humanity; let’s put aside Saddam who one can easily understand dismissing; this kind of circus dehumanizes the Iraqi people, the media, and us, the viewers. It’s not something that should be in any way entertainment or a spectator sport, and yet that’s what it’s been from the start; all the commentary about why this was necessary has been about satisfying the masses, perhaps not just in Iraq, but also here, so we don’t feel like all our soldiers died for nothing. That just doesn’t sit right with me, and makes me feel more certain that this is the wrong course, not just in this particular case, but the wrong way for us as human beings. It’s dragging us backward. I want us to get better, so we can one day look back at today the way we now look back at the justice and morality of the Dark Ages.
I couldn’t agree more. This is not a good thing.
“if a person killed and tortured one of your children or your wife, would want that person executed and pay for the crime?”
No, because I don’t think the law should be about personal vengeance.
Years ago, my dad explained it to me thusly:
If taking the life of another person is truly the most heinous crime one can commit – and I think many people agree that it is – then is it ever justifiable for the state to do just that?
Granted, it’s an open-ended question, but my answer is no. An injustice (or even thousands) cannot be rectified by another injustice. And this doesn’t even go into issues like executing innocent people, which I think is safe to say is an unrelated topic to Hussein.
I definitely wouldn’t say taking the life of another person is the worst crime someone can commit; torture, slavery, etc are all worse I think.
As far as a vengeance… this is another area where I am not 100% anti-death penalty. Let’s say one of Saddam’s victim’s relatives had, at any point, shot him. Should that person be prosecuted? Traditional law says yes, my gut says no. On some level, I think there is a moral right to seek vengeance for certain crimes, even if the law says otherwise.
But a big media/government-promoted exhibition like this is something else entirely.
I was surprised by how much it affected me. I am 100% opposed to the death penalty, but I didnt think the death of a man like Saddam would bother me that much. It has ‘though, and I suppose thats a good thing
I’m actually in favor of the death penalty. It’s under-utilized here in the States. I fully believe that all persons convicted of rape should be quickly and mercifully put to death. Recidivism for sex crimes is all too common. Locking them these predators for life is a cruel waste of resources better spent on educating our children and providing healthcare for the poor.
But Saddam Hussein?
Like you, Peter, I don’t see how this helps Iraq. to quote Robert Deniro, “I see bad t’ings.”
Aron Head
http://www.EvilBastard.net
I just want to know if they played any music when the witnesses were supposedly dancing around the body.
Someone queue Men Without Hats!
I can’t see why any rational person would be against the death penalty. It’s the only thing that has been proven 100% effective in preventing repeat offenses.
What are you going to do, put them in prison for life? I refer you to the case of the Texas Seven, where men that were in prison for life managed to escape and murder a policeman on Christmas Eve.
Had they been put to death, they wouldn’t have been able to escape and kill again.
15 years ago, the reported cost to execute a convict was $9 million. The annual cost to jail him was less than $30,000. A murderer jailed at 20 would have to live to 80 for the death penalty to be cost effective. Citing cost as a merit of the death penalty is riculous.
This is a terrific thing because:
1. All his victims will now come back to life.
2. We won’t have to spend the next few decades listening to all his tired stories about his warm relationship and “understandings” with Ronald Reagan, Donald Rumsfeld, Ðìçk Cheney, Jim Baker, and Bush Senior.
Way to bring civilization to the heathen, Dubya!
Also, “atrocities” are acts committed during war.
“Artocities” are committed by Rob Liefeld.
My guess?
BushCo. will use the death of Hussein as proof of Iraqi independance at work and use it as an excuse to strategically disengage from Iraq.
While blacks are the leading victims of murder, death rows are dominated by convicts who kill whites. A rational person would oppose the death penalty because it’s a racist practice.
If you were really interested in saving lives, you’d be for the execution of the tobacco executives who lied to congress they didn’t think cigarettes caused cancer. 400,000 people in the US die from cigarettes every year — twice as many people than Saddam Hussein killed in his lifetime. Where’s your outrage against them?
The A.P. is running a photo with a caption that says that it shows a vandalized mural of Saddam Hussein. The problem is that it isn’t quite what I would call vandalized in any real sense of the word that I grew up with. The writing says, “Long live Saddam and the Baath [Party].”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16396338/
I’m all for the death penalty. Got no problems with it. This one I have a problem with.
Saddam was tucked away in his cell. He was a frail shadow (courtroom hellfire and brimstone aside)of what he was a few short years ago. He would have become even less in the coming decades. Age and hardships in jail would have made him, in propaganda ways, a beaten mouse of a man in time.
Now he may get to become a lion in death.
I hope that doesn’t happen. I hope that he doesn’t become a symbol for a new and stronger wave of attacks in the coming new year. I really hope all of us seeing this as a strong possible outcome in Iraq’s future are wrong. If this adds more fire to the odd group of loyalists or to some of the remaining Saddam hardliners in a country already trembling on the edge…. The Iraq war is lost for sure.
If anyone deserved the death penalty it was him, but it’s never a good idea. If you want to show you’ve got the moral highground this isn’t the way.
And when it comes to North American crimes like rape and murder, no it’s not 100% effective because the correct person isn’t convicted 100% of the time. Innocents are in prisons for crimes they didn’t commit and guilty folks go free because of loopholes and money. Throw the death penalty into that mix and you’ve got an unethical system.
Did he deserve to die? Probably. But that’s not my call to make. I’m squishy about how I feel towards the death penalty. I don’t want to sentence somebody to die, but I don’t think some people deserve to live either.
Regardless, I can’t fathom why someone wants to dance around a dead body. I can understand relief and gratefulness it’s over, the courts agreed these crimes were wrong but… to rejoice and celebrate death? I’d rather mourn the reason Saddam hung. I know hundreds of thousands that need to be remembered tonight.
Peter, I’ve heard an interesting argument tonight. Someone said the bible (Christian King James Version) said “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. Another corrected this person by saying the original hebrew meaning was “Thou Shalt Not Murder”. Their point was that you can kill justly without murder. Is this a correct meaning of the original commandment to the best of your knowledge?
First off, let me preface everything by saying two things. I don’t think the death penalty works. On the other hand, if I ever got my own hands on certain people, their lives wouldn’t be worth an hour’s purchase, and I feel guilty about thinking that way.
Now, as far as Hussein goes–I was relieved when his sons, especially Qusay, were killed. From everything I’ve heard or read, those two were MUCH more dangerous than their father. But as far as Saddam Hussein himself–I’m neither Muslim nor Iraqi, so I don’t know that I can really understand their point of view. Isalmic justice(again, this is just from what I’ve read) doesn’t seem all that different from pther religions or groups. One thing that is laid out, though are what they call Qisas, which means equality. With this, a person’s victims are entitled to do the same thing to the person as the person did to the victim.
I don’t know that Saddam Hussien will that much more effective as a martyr now that he’s dead. But like I said, I’m neither Muslim nor Iraqi. I don’t know.
I believe in capital punishment to a point: it should be used on those who are obviously guilty (such as when there is no question of guilt) in murder cases, but not on those that are not blatantly obvious (such as cases where men on death row are now being cleared by DNA evidence).
Yes, that is a fine line, but we know what Saddam did (hëll, we gave him the means to do it), and he deserved far worse than what he got.
So, no, I make no bones about the fact that I can smile and laugh away at the fact that three dictators (Milosevic, Pinochet, and now Hussein) have all bit the big one in the last year. And if one of them needed to be helped along, all the better.
If Mike’s facts are anywhere near the truth, then it’s a perverse problem in our system that needs to be fixed: people should not be on death row for decades, and it shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg to see justice served once and for all.
Posted by John Judy:
“Artocities” are committed by Rob Liefeld.
You forgot Greg Land.
> 15 years ago, the reported cost to execute a
> convict was $9 million. The annual cost to jail
> him was less than $30,000. A murderer jailed at
> 20 would have to live to 80 for the death
> penalty to be cost effective. Citing cost as a
> merit of the death penalty is riculous.
Mike, don’t get me wrong. The cost of death penalty cases is ridiculous and requires reform as well. I wholly believe in innocent until proven guilty. But once guilt is determined, punishment should be swift (and cost effective).
I’m sure that someone will point out how many innocent men are on death row, later vindicated by dna testing. I also believe that the laws surrounding evidence should be adjusted as well to require dna testing wherever feasible. Every step should be taken to ensure that those convicted are indeed guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
At the end of the day, though, suffer not a rapist to live.
Aron Head
http://www.EvilBastard.net
> And when it comes to North American crimes like
> rape and murder, no it’s not 100% effective
> because the correct person isn’t convicted 100%
> of the time. Innocents are in prisons for crimes
> they didn’t commit and guilty folks go free
> because of loopholes and money. Throw the death
> penalty into that mix and you’ve got an
> unethical system.
Ian, by that logic it makes no sense to imprison the convicted much less execute them. If we are constantly second-guessing judgements, perhaps it’s more merciful to set them all free?
Of course there are flaws with our system! Of course it requires reform! But at some point you have to say “this is as good as it gets, let’s move forward.”
I would not presume to implement a more frequent application of the death penalty without first correcting some of the appalling shortcomings of the existing system.
Aron Head
http://www.EvilBastard.net
I’m with PAD here. I mean I know, I KNOW that Saddam inflicted worse suffering than what he endured during his execution. I’m aware of that…and yet emotionally, for reasons I can’t understand, I feel a little sorry for him.
For one thing, hanging is neither a quick death nor a painless one.
For another, he was described as a “broken man” in one report I read. No ranting, no defiance, no acting evil. He was just a pitiful shell of his former self.
Then he was executed and people danced around the body.
If somebody were watching that scene and didn’t know who Saddam was or what he’d done, they would probably be horrified by the actions of the spectators and the executioners.
If capital punishment must be used, it should be to remove a threat from the world and make people safer, NOT to satisfy somebody’s bloodlust. The executioners should not resemble the criminals, not in any way, shape, or form. There should be no cruelty, no sadism, no joy taken in somebody’s death. That is–supposedly–what separates civilized people from sociopaths.
The other thing Mr. David said: we don’t need another martyr. If Saddam came across as sympathetic to me, even if it was just on an emotional level, can you imagine how his Sunni followers feel right now? Trust me, if they are in a position to make people pay, they will do so. This is gonna get worse before it gets better, if it ever gets better.
I hate to bring up comics during a serious discussion but as far as I’m concerned, a lot of what I learned about capital punishment or death as revenge, etc has been explored in Batman and other similar titles.
Great, now he’s dead–does that really bring back those he’s killed? Has it really made anything right? Or will everyone he’s affected still have that pit of emptiness inside them?
I’m not saying he shouldn’t be dead, you have no arguments from me. And I’m not saying I’m against capital punishment, there are people in this world that truly are hard-wired for evil tendencies (what is evil and what isn’t discussion notwithstanding) and I think death sometimes is called for (though I don’t know if I’d ever be strong enough to pull the level, etc) However, I’d rather Saddam’s death have happened in battle and not after a circus of a trial. As Peter said, he’s one of the ultimate martyrs.
> I mean, what’s the point of killing him? He was caught! And now he’s free. Oh well.
The point? Maybe the fact that there’s one less monster in the world? The fact that Mandella was ‘caught’ and still managed to inspire an, admitedly non-violent, uprising in South Africa from jail?
>If anyone deserved the death penalty it was him, but it’s never a good idea.
Beg to differ. Considering the violence in some prisons (and I don’t mean Hollywood’s version), it’s clear some people aren’t ‘safe’ to have around even behind bars.
> If you want to show you’ve got the moral highground this isn’t the way.
Given how many people have been executed in Iraq over the last few decades (Hussein even had his own SON executed), one more really isn’t exactly taking the low road.
Yes, I have no problems with the death penalty, in limited cases, and where there can be no doubt of guilt. Consider the Canadian couple (upper-class yuppie husband/wife) who were convicted of raping, killing a couple of teen girls – one of them the wife’s own kid sister. I’d have not lost any sleep if Canada had the death penalty and applied it to them. Possible judicial error? Not bloody likely when they videotaped themselves committing the atrocities.
So? They aren’t dead. They’re alive. In fact the sick wife is out on parole. Having to move a lot. Seems wherever she relocates to, her neighbours don’t seem pleased to have her around for some reason.
This is ‘justice’? Yeah, sure.
I hate to bring up comics during a serious discussion but as far as I’m concerned, a lot of what I learned about capital punishment or death as revenge, etc has been explored in Batman and other similar titles.
I don’t think bringing comics into it makes it any less serious, Tom. The argument about whether or not killing is ever justified has been addressed in comics. Spider-Man and the Punisher have gotten into it, and so did Storm and Wolverine back in the day. That’s just the times I can think of off the top of my head.
I’d feel better if he’d died in battle too. Maybe it comes from seeing how villains were portrayed in fiction all my life: villains would capture good guys and torment them while they were helpless. Perhaps I came to associate that with villainy.
Saddam has been helpless for a long time now. I won’t even speculate how he was treated while he was locked up. And in the end, we had this guy who had been beaten and we (technically the Iraqi government acting on our behalf) killed him in cold blood. I almost wrote the joke from X-Factor about how that’s like warm blood except with the air conditioning on, but decided there wasn’t anything funny about this.
I don’t feel right about the killing of a helpless, defeated victim. Realistic or not, I have preconceived notions about what the good guys will and will not do, and when the U.S. or its proxies fail to live up to that I feel great disappointment and disillusionment.
Back to comics…Norman Osborn is one of the meanest, nastiest, most sadistic mofos in the Marvel Universe. He has put Peter Parker through hëll. Nevertheless, when I saw him being dragged away in “Civil War: Frontline” to a fate he was absolutely terrified of, I pitied him, despite all he had done. Because he was helpless and scared.
I don’t care who somebody is or what they’ve done–even the worst of the worst only deserve to suffer so much before you call off the dogs, figuratively speaking.
Posted by Robert Fuller
No, because I don’t think the law should be about personal vengeance.
That’s close to my position – however, my position is that the law shouldn’t get in the way of personal vengeance in cases like that.
Given how many people have been executed in Iraq over the last few decades (Hussein even had his own SON executed), one more really isn’t exactly taking the low road.
Starwolf, if you’re saying we’re not as bad as Saddam was…that’s not saying very much, pal.
We see killing going on there every day. It’s not stopping. Where’s the perspective on this? I see the media treating this as one more celebrity event. I think that strips us of our humanity; let’s put aside Saddam who one can easily understand dismissing; this kind of circus dehumanizes the Iraqi people, the media, and us, the viewers. It’s not something that should be in any way entertainment or a spectator sport, and yet that’s what it’s been from the start; all the commentary about why this was necessary has been about satisfying the masses, perhaps not just in Iraq, but also here, so we don’t feel like all our soldiers died for nothing. That just doesn’t sit right with me, and makes me feel more certain that this is the wrong course, not just in this particular case, but the wrong way for us as human beings. It’s dragging us backward. I want us to get better, so we can one day look back at today the way we now look back at the justice and morality of the Dark Ages.
To which I can only say: amen.
StarWolf posted:
Given how many people have been executed in Iraq over the last few decades (Hussein even had his own SON executed), one more really isn’t exactly taking the low road.
Sorry, but Hussein did NOT have his own son executed. Saddam had two sons (Qusay and Uday) and a possible third, Ali (one of Hussein’s daughters claims Ali is actually her son, and therefore, Saddam’s grandson) and three daughters (Rana, Raghad, and Hala). Saddam did have his wife’s BROTHER (and childhood friend), Adnan Tuffah, executed, and he withdrew his protection from the husbands of his daughters, Rana and Raghad, after they defected from and then returned to Iraq (Saddam had pardoned them, but the men were killed by other clan members who felt they were traitors).
Peter, you’re one of my grander role models, but I’m afraid this is going to be one of the rare instances in which I disagree with you.
I am absolutely pro-death penalty, especially in extreme cases such as this. I was once called upon to define “evil,” and I came up with “one who deliberately and without remorse harms another sentient being.”
In cases of those who have raped and murdered, I am not only for the death penalty, I am for the victim or the victim’s loved ones to be able to decide how it should be carried out. I am all over the Code Of Hammurabi.
However, I DO think the current judicial system is in need of a MASSIVE overhaul before these standards can be applied and applied JUSTLY. I know I am trying to compare justice to vengeance here, but I believe in the extent of the punishment fitting the extent of the crime. Should a thief have his hands cut off? No, but he should recompense the victim in fair value and spend a little time in jail, dependent on the value of the stolen good(s). Pretty much what’s in place now.
Serial rapists ought to have their feet and genitalia messily removed, all I’m sayin’ there.
It is totally effed up that we should kill to prove killing is wrong, but sometimes it is well and truly the most fitting punishment. The bereaved of the deceased oftentimes know no peace until they have the assurance that the monster who killed their loved one is gone forever; a boogeyman that has well and truly been banished.
I do think that VERY STRICT standards ought to be placed on the death penalty, and that it ought to be an extreme rarity – even more so than it is now. There should be unexonerable (did I just make that word up?) evidence that the accused is, in fact, guilty. It would be much fairer to all those involved. Like a lot of people are saying here, we can agree or disagree on our stance on the death penalty, but I think we’re all nodding that yes, the judicial system needs a hëll of a lot more refined strictures.
And Saddam TOTALLY got off light, but that’s just IMHO, as you internet folk like to call it. 🙂
Considering how many people suffered and died because of Saddam, I’m pleased as punch he’s dead. Pitiful end or not, he was a monster.
I may not agree with HOW Bush went about taking him out of power, but removing the psycho remains the one and only thing Bush has done that I agree with.
So with his death, I’m free to hate Bush equally as much for all his scummy actions getting innocent people maimed, killed, and traumitized for life.
“Ian, by that logic it makes no sense to imprison the convicted much less execute them. If we are constantly second-guessing judgements, perhaps it’s more merciful to set them all free?”
If future evidence clears someone wrongly convicted you can free them. If you kill the person, they’re still dead.
And I have nothing against second guessing judges. Checks and balances are a positive.
I have no problem with Death Penalty, I think we should use it more. Especially in “open and shut” cases with DNA evidence, VIDEO taped crimes, etc.
I believe we have every right to make that judgement, because there is no “God” to mete out punishment after death.
Oops, I made a math error: $9 million / $30,000 isn’t 60 years. It’s 300 years. A convict would have to serve that long for the death penalty to be cost effective.
Considering Governor George Ryan’s reservations, reform would obviously increase the expense to execute someone.
Like Harry Truman?
“why are you oppsed to Capital punishment? this man killed thousands of people, sureley he deserves death.”
I don’t doubt it. But murder is murder is murder. I’m not convinced that becoming that which we despise is morally or ethically a good thing. We have advanced so much as a society from hundreds of years ago; I don’t see that an inability to move beyond taking human life is a good thing.
“if a person killed and tortured one of your children or your wife, would want that person executed and pay for the crime?”
Yes. Absolutely. In fact, if they offered me the opportunity, I’d want to pull the switch on the electric chair myself. Hëll, hand me a baseball bat and give me ten minutes with him.
But I shouldn’t have that right. I shouldn’t have the right to take another’s life any more than they have the right to take the life of one of my family.
PAD
“What are you going to do, put them in prison for life? I refer you to the case of the Texas Seven, where men that were in prison for life managed to escape and murder a policeman on Christmas Eve.”
And I can point to many examples of guns used in accidental shootings. Yet I daresay those who favor unfettered gun ownership would be unimpressed by it.
PAD
Regarding Saddam Hussein in particular, I’m surprised that he was killed this quickly, but I don’t think it will make any major difference to the civil unrest in Iraq.
Meanwhile, I don’t have any strong feelings about the death penalty in general. I can understand why PAD doesn’t agree with it, and the “Crazy Eight” story from Hulk does provide a pretty compelling argument against it. On the other hand, it doesn’t generally bother me if I hear about someone being executed, any more than I mourn for “2 people killed in motorway crash”.
When I was younger, I used to think that there was a logical flaw in a system that said “Killing people is wrong, so to prove it we’re going to kill you.” However, I now think that there’s a way to construct an internally consistent logic for this, based on the concept of human rights vs human privileges. For instance, suppose that “not being tortured” is a fundamental right whereas “not being killed” is a privilege. If you kill someone else then you surrender your own privilege, and therefore if the state kills you then they haven’t done anything hypocritical.
As for cost, I think it cuts both ways. For instance, I read a report a while back (URL no longer functioning) which said that it cost £40,000 per year to keep someone in a high security prison in 2000/2001. Meanwhile, according to the Guardian:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,755717,00.html
the average teacher’s salary in 2002 was £26,400 yer year. In theory, I think that there would be a short term benefit to diverting all of that money from prisons to education, hopefully reducing the future need for prisons. In practice, the process (in America) does sound a bit more complicated/expensive than just paying a guard to walk around with a shotgun one morning.
Incidentally, I live in the UK, and we don’t have a death penalty here at the moment, so the issue of “people who support it are being racist” doesn’t apply because that’s a specific detail of the way the policy has been implemented elsewhere.
There’s a scene at the end of “The Demolished Man” (by Alfred Bester) where one character basically says “The death penalty was a really stupid idea, and I’m glad we got rid of it. If you’re smart enough to plan a crime like this, then you could be a great asset to society once you’re rehabilitated.” I can understand that approach (and I enjoy reading the comic “Thunderbolts”).
However, my concern in other cases is “What’s the best case scenario?” E.g. suppose that Ian Huntley (a British guy who killed two schoolgirls in Soham a few years ago) saw the error of his ways, and became a changed man. Would he be released? I very much doubt it. Back before Myra Hindley died, I doubted that she’d ever be released, since it would be political suicide for whichever Home Secretary allowed it. And I suspect that a similar thing applies here, although it’s a bit early to say (it depends how many people remember this in ten years). So, if he’s not released, what will he do? The best case I can think of is that he writes a book, and convinces other would-be child killers to mend their ways. But I think that’s unlikely.
More generally, suppose that someone who committed a less emotive crime is released. Quite frankly, I think that a lot of criminals are very stupid, and poorly educated. So, even after release, the best career path they’re likely to have is working at the local MacDonalds. So, perhaps there is a question of value for money, when we’re comparing prison to education. When Thompson and Venables were released (the two boys who killed James Bulger), I remember an interview with a girl the same age as them (I think she may have been at school with them, but I’m not certain about that). Anyway, she was rather bitter that they’d received a far better education than she had (effectively private tuition for 12 years).
The related issue is “how much protection should the state provide for prisoners like Huntley?” Arguably, one valid approach would be to take them out of solitary confinement, but put them with people who are near the end of their sentences. Then say to the other prisoners “If you behave yourself, you’ll be out on probation next month. If you kill him, you’ll stay here for another 10 years.” That might even provide a useful test of how well they’ve been rehabilitated.
“I do think that VERY STRICT standards ought to be placed on the death penalty, and that it ought to be an extreme rarity – even more so than it is now. There should be unexonerable (did I just make that word up?) evidence that the accused is, in fact, guilty. It would be much fairer to all those involved.”
You’re asking for something that’s impossible: Degrees of guilt. “Yes, we find the defendant guilty, but not SO guilty that we’re sure enough to execute him. But, oh, this guy over here (dark skin, presumably, without the money for a top flight defense attorney), we’re absolutely positive that he’s definitely so guilty that HIM, we can execute.
A funny thing about giving a government the right to do something in very, very limited circumstances: Over time, they will expand the right to do it in more and more circumstances. I know that theoretically it may make sense to say that we only give the death penalty to a guy who, in full view of six people, murders a cop, then rips out his heart, eats it, and is arrested with blood all over his face and bits of heart in his teeth while singing, “Happy days are here again because I killed a cop and ate his heart.” But in short order the black guy who was picked up off the street by a witness who saw a perp for two seconds while he was fleeing the scene is going to go to the chair while insisting on his innocence. And justice, being blind, will see no difference, because guilty/not guilty is a binomial situation. It’s either/or.
“And Saddam TOTALLY got off light, but that’s just IMHO, as you internet folk like to call it. :)”
And it’s my opinion as well, which is kind of the point. I’m a big believer in Kathleen’s concept: That the murder should be incarcerated for life in a cell while being forced to watch, 24/7, videos of the lives of those he killed. Image after image after image of births, birthday parties, graduations, weddings, over and over and over, with the volume turned way up, so they can experience every laugh, every cry, every moment of celebration. More often than not, murderers dehumanize their victims. This way they spend the rest of their natural existence faced with the inescapable fact that their victims were human beings.
I appreciate the philosophies of Hammurabi, but we can’t confine our view of justice to the best thinking that was available centuries ago. Not if we’re to advance as a race.
PAD
Pretty good points, John.
But in this issue there is a lot of emotion, there are religious issues, there is ideology, it’s a pretty hard issue to discuss rationally for all of us.
I have to say it bothers me a little how many words and thoughts and energy will be spent on discussing Saddam’s death, while most of his VICTIMS’ deaths (not to say the deaths of everyone who died in the Iraq Invasion and afterwards) are only statistics.
People humanize Saddam Hussein, and yet most of the nameless victims in this conflict remain nameless, dehumanized.
I can’t deny it, when a formerly powerful man that commited so much evil is killed, I still feel a deep sense of satisfaction.
I know full well that the Dubya invasion was a mistake and mostly likely a crime, I know full well that Saddam’s death at this point will not make things any better, but who can say what will make things any better in this messed-up world we live? I’m just glad when monsters die.
Having said that, PAD’s suggestion on how to punish murderers sounds pretty good to me too. Forcing them to confront the humanity of their victims. That is pretty brilliant!
The only problem is that that wouldn’t work so well against that minority of truly messed-up psychopaths that are utterly unable to connect emotionally to human beings. They would, at most, just be annoyed at being forced to watch their victims’ birthday parties and weddings.
“15 years ago, the reported cost to execute a convict was $9 million. The annual cost to jail him was less than $30,000. “
Thanks to liberals that wanted to add stipulation upon stipulation. It sure didn’t cost $9 million to execute Hussein, did it?
“If you were really interested in saving lives, you’d be for the execution of the tobacco executives who lied to congress they didn’t think cigarettes caused cancer. 400,000 people in the US die from cigarettes every year — twice as many people than Saddam Hussein killed in his lifetime. Where’s your outrage against them?”
I LOVE watching people flail about like this when they can’t come up with an intelligent argument. Tobacco executives did not go to these people’s homes and shove tobacco in their mouths, did they? No. Smokers made a decision to smoke. Tough for them that they have to pay for it now. Anyone that doesn’t realize that sucking smoke into your body is bad for you is someone that I don’t really want in the gene pool anyway.
“And I can point to many examples of guns used in accidental shootings. Yet I daresay those who favor unfettered gun ownership would be unimpressed by it.”
Good dodge of my point, it’s pretty much what I’ve come to expect from the anti death penalty crowd.
I’m against the death penalty, with the same exceptions PAD mentions–were a family member killed I’d want to…well. Don’t like the government having so much power.
That said, this was Iraq’s call to make, not ours and given the usual way such people are noramlly handled in most of the Muslim world his was a relatively gentle end.
There is, however, an argument to make for his execution, that certain crimes against humanity demand a punishment far greater than mere imprisonment. Eichman may never have personally bloodied his hands directly but I lose no sleep over his execution by the Israelis. Same for all those executed at Nuremberg. Had Pol Pot been strung up a tree (or Mengele or Pinoche or, still reputedly among the living, Castro) I’d see it as quite justified.
One could argue that keeping him alive would have had a far greater risk of making him a martyr or at least a potential focal point of terrorism than killing him. That carzy blind shiek who recently died was said to have continued to influence events even behind bars.
What I really wish is that when they found him in that spider hole they had tossed a few grenades down the hatch.. I’ve heard a number of commentators saying the same thing–butthen doesn’t that imply that it isn’t the death penalty one objects to but rather the formal use of such?
Moral considerations aside, there’s a simple, practical reason any intelligent person should oppose the death penalty. However airtight you believe your case to be, you can never be 100% sure. Take the case over here of the Birminghan Six, who were arrested and convicted of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings in which dozens were killed and maimed. Forensic tests ‘proved’ they had been handling nitro-glycerine so this was clearly an a open-and-shut case. Not so, as it turns out. It was later proven that the test was flawed, that it also gave a positive result for nitro-cellulose, which is used to coat playing cards. Guess what they had been doing before they were arrested?
They served 16 years for a crime they did not commit. Had we not disposed of the barbarity that is the death penalty they would have been hanged. This was the case that finally convinced then Home Secretary Michael Howard, a Tory and a lifelong believer in the death penalty so no liberal he, that it was wrong. As he put it, an apology and compensation would always be inadequate but these were far superior to “the cold comfort of a posthumous pardon”.
“15 years ago, the reported cost to execute a convict was $9 million. The annual cost to jail him was less than $30,000. “
Thanks to liberals that wanted to add stipulation upon stipulation. It sure didn’t cost $9 million to execute Hussein, did it?
Correct me if I’m wrong, but without looking at anything online, I’m pretty confident saying that the last 3 years have cost us QUITE A BIT financially, not to mention military or civilian lives lost. I’ve heard $2 billion a month, and over 3 years since the start of the war…..who wants to research it for me and find a dollar number for The Debacle Factor?
I’m anti-death penalty, and while I don’t agree with what happened here, I can see the logic of this.
Alive, there’s always a chance of him getting free, rising to power. Death, there’s no chance of that.
Alive, he can communicate to his followers, and give orders. Again, hard to do dead.
Alive, he gives motive and power to the Baath for many years. Dead, while a martyre, I expect his influence will still be shorter lived.
I think alive he increased the chance for escalation (even further) of the civil infighting in Iraq. While I wouldn’t be suprised for some short term retaliation, I expect in the long term this will help.
My personal preference would have been having Sadam placed in US custody, and moved to Camp X-Ray, out of Iraq, and let him rot for life. But to say there’s no logic in his death I think is wrong.
“That said, this was Iraq’s call to make, not ours “
Actually, that’s another aspect that bugs me; no matter how the White House is trying to spin it, it wasn’t an Iraqi affair by any means.
We invaded their country. We overthrew him. We hunted him down and captured him. We helped set up the government that tried him. He remained in our hands right up until we turned him over for execution. We built the freakin’ gallows. The Iraqi government was the public face of this for obvious political reasons, but there’s no way we can say this was their operation.
So responsibility for his execution and how it was handled has to lay largely with us. Remember, he was an international war criminal. He killed far more Iranians than he did Iraqis, and he also attacked Kuwait and Israel. We would have been perfectly justified turning him over to the same international court that convicted Milosevich, but we chose to participate in setting up an ad hoc court with serious questions about due process, basically for political expediency. So that’s another moral issue that makes me feel a bit queasy about this whole escapade.