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
• 
Why is it slippery to say the obvious?
When was the US chastised for something the UN went along with? What are you complaining about?
Oooh, somehow giving chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein is worse than profiting from their sale. That’s Totally Normal Psychology.™
“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.”
*************
SER: So, by this argument, you would support the death penalty only for those who might arguably do so again? That occasionally factors into sentencing but not always. I don’t recall that being an issue in the Scott Peterson case, for example. The prosecutors basically stated that he needed to die because of the crime he committed. There was no convincing argument made that Peterson was so great a threat to the public that life in prison would endanger innocent lives. Frankly, if that was part of the process and burden of proof on those seeking the death penalty vs. life in prison, I imagine we would see far less people sentenced to death.
It is true that Alcolac International, a Maryland company, transported thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor, to Iraq.
Go to http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:99ppToBo4I4J:www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/iran/iran-chemical-1998.html+Alcolac+International+mustard+gas&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3&client=firefox-a
for a bit more detail. An interesting section:
In January 1989, a U.S. Customs Service investigation revealed that an Iranian diplomat posted in West Germany, Seyed Kharim Ali Sobhani, had brokered three shipments of thiodiglycol, a precursor of mustard gas and a controlled commodity, from the United States to Iran in 1987 and 1988 through a West German company. The Iranian agent had instructed the German firm Chemco GmbH to purchase the chemical from Alcolac International of Baltimore, and shipments were routed through third countries (30 tons through Greece in March 1987 and 60 tons through Singapore in June 1987) to conceal their final destinations.
The Customs Service intercepted a third Alcolac shipment of 120 tons in April 1988, substituted water for the chemicals, and tracked the shipment through Singapore and Pakistan to a Tehran firm M/S Ray Textile Industries, that U.S. officials said was a front company for chemical purchases. The responsible officer at Chemco GmbH was arrested and pleaded guilty to violating U.S. export law, but subsequently jumped bond and fled to West Germany, where he could not be extradited or prosecuted under German law. The West German government, under pressure from the United States, forced Tehran to withdraw the Iranian diplomat from its embassy in Bonn.
Alcolac pleaded guilty to a single count of violating U.S. export law for manipulation of documents by its export manager, Leslie Hinkelman, to conceal the fact that the 120-ton shipment of thiodiglycol was destined for Iran. It was later revealed that Alcolac exported four other shipments of thiodiglycol totaling more than 400 tons through Nu Kraft Mercantile Corporation of New York, which were ultimately diverted via Jordan to Iraq.
Hmmm…y’know, a person might, just might get the impression that instead of “The US giving Saddam chemical weapons” we have a US company breaking the law and using every trick in the book to hide this fact. One wonders why these details–which seem to me to be fairly important, wouldn’t you agree, Mike?–were left out of the SFgate article. Lack of space, no doubt.
And perhaps there is reason to believe that the US government was totally aware of these crimes and actually behind it. Haven’t seen it yet though.
Of course, if one is willing to ignore all logic one could pretend that any and all actions of any and all US companies are henceforth to be considered The Offical Government Policy Of These United States and go on from there.
It is true that Alcolac International, a Maryland company, transported thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor, to Iraq.
Go to h**p://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:99ppToBo4I4J:www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/iran/iran-chemical-1998.html+Alcolac+International+mustard+gas&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3&client=firefox-a
for a bit more detail. An interesting section:
In January 1989, a U.S. Customs Service investigation revealed that an Iranian diplomat posted in West Germany, Seyed Kharim Ali Sobhani, had brokered three shipments of thiodiglycol, a precursor of mustard gas and a controlled commodity, from the United States to Iran in 1987 and 1988 through a West German company. The Iranian agent had instructed the German firm Chemco GmbH to purchase the chemical from Alcolac International of Baltimore, and shipments were routed through third countries (30 tons through Greece in March 1987 and 60 tons through Singapore in June 1987) to conceal their final destinations.
The Customs Service intercepted a third Alcolac shipment of 120 tons in April 1988, substituted water for the chemicals, and tracked the shipment through Singapore and Pakistan to a Tehran firm M/S Ray Textile Industries, that U.S. officials said was a front company for chemical purchases. The responsible officer at Chemco GmbH was arrested and pleaded guilty to violating U.S. export law, but subsequently jumped bond and fled to West Germany, where he could not be extradited or prosecuted under German law. The West German government, under pressure from the United States, forced Tehran to withdraw the Iranian diplomat from its embassy in Bonn.
Alcolac pleaded guilty to a single count of violating U.S. export law for manipulation of documents by its export manager, Leslie Hinkelman, to conceal the fact that the 120-ton shipment of thiodiglycol was destined for Iran. It was later revealed that Alcolac exported four other shipments of thiodiglycol totaling more than 400 tons through Nu Kraft Mercantile Corporation of New York, which were ultimately diverted via Jordan to Iraq.
Hmmm…y’know, a person might, just might get the impression that instead of “The US giving Saddam chemical weapons” we have a US company breaking the law and using every trick in the book to hide this fact. One wonders why these details–which seem to me to be fairly important, wouldn’t you agree, Mike?–were left out of the SFgate article. Lack of space, no doubt.
And perhaps there is reason to believe that the US government was totally aware of these crimes and actually behind it. Haven’t seen it yet though.
Of course, if one is willing to ignore all logic one could pretend that any and all actions of any and all US companies are henceforth to be considered The Offical Government Policy Of These United States and go on from there.
The funny thing is that rolling from “Amazon.com was running a mad sale on Garman GPS devices” to the death of Saddam Hussein are inextricably linked and until we recognise this relationship we’re forever condemned to repeat it. It’s our love of cheap, bargain stuff, of irresponsible consumption that leads to these resource wars and thus toppling once favoured dictators. It’s our greed, our need for junk we don’t really need, is what keeps perpetuating these problems. Although collective responsibility is a blunt instrument we do, at some atomic level, share some of the blame for this chaos. I think Western hyper-consumption is incredibly dangerous and frankly, stupid.
The Alcolac bust? Clinton-era.
Sheltering Alcolac by censoring their mention from the Iraq Weapons Declaration? Bush-era.
“The US giving Saddam chemical weapons” and “any and all actions of any and all US companies are henceforth to be considered The Offical Government Policy Of These United States?” Strawmen.
Pitiful.
Oh, crap, I gave the Future™ an inaccuracy. W shelterd a company busted under his dad’s watch.
Don’t say I never gave you anything.
ok, just so I’m clear, we’ve gone from “The USA gave Saddam the chemicals used to kill the Kurds” to “GW Bush, using his svengali-like pwers to make the UN do whatever he wants, helped to hide the fact that a US company illegally sold chemicals to Iran and Iraq until they were caught.”
Once again, the power of the web. Remember when we had to take people’s word on things, trusting that they would have the integrity to include all the salient details?
Also, please in the future add the name of hans Blix to your list of evildoers–“UNSCOM had a practice of not revealing names of companies of suppliers of equipment to Iraq because they often had the possibility of getting information from these companies, and the best way to get these companies to talk to them was not to publish their names to start with,” Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, told CNN. I smell cover-up!
(What was the vote in the security council on this? Considering how so many other countries were in this up to their eyeballs to a far greater degree than we were this might be an interesting detail…one Mike’s source left out, allowing the careless reader to come away with the impression that it was the US that suppressed this report (though even THEY didn’t go so far as to claim it was a GW Bush coverup))
So despite your best efforts, it would seem at this point–someone less interested in snark and more interested in facts may well come up with something to convince me otherwise–that we can lay to rest the old “The US supplied Iraq with those very same WMDs that Saddam was accused of using” chestnut.
Oh, crap, I gave the Future™ an inaccuracy. W shelterd a company busted under his dad’s watch.
Don’t say I never gave you anything.
Don’t feel obligated to tell the truth on my account, Mike. It should be something you wish to do just because it’s, you know, the right thing to do.
Bill,
I think there is a tendancy to conflate together the fact that Saddam used WMD in the late 80’s and the fact that the US prefered Saddam to Hummeni in the Iran-Iraq conflict. So far you’ve focused on what chemicals and technology Iraq got from the west. But perhaps you could elaborate on the nature of the relationship between Saddam and the US during the Iran-Iraq war. I don’t know much about it.
We stupidly sided with Saddam, which, given the fact that we had come close to war with Iran is understandable but was still a mistake. There is a penalty to be payed for supporting thugs and mass murderers, even if they may be temporarily on your side. It might be unavoidable, as it was with Stalin, but there will always be a price. Personally I don’t think it was even close to worth it and that would have been the case even if Gulf wars 1 and 2 hadn’t happened.
Those who now are making pilgrimages to Iran to be photoed with a smiling Ahmadinejad would do well to remember that. If the miserable little madman lives up to his ambitions…
BAGHDAD, Dec. 31, 2006 — The latest video of Saddam’s execution, with a soundtrack that shows that his guards were taunting him up to the last moment before the lever was pulled and he fell to his death, has been burning through cyberspace in Iraq and across the Middle East.
It is not only the bad taste of mocking a man about to die that has been getting angry reactions here: The worst aspect is the sectarian nature of the insults.
The guards shout “Moqtada, Moqtada,” as Saddam is reciting a prayer with the noose around his neck: They are referring to Moqtada al Sadr, the extremist Shiite cleric whose Mahdi Army is the most feared militia in Iraq, widely thought to operate death squads targeting Sunnis.
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/IraqCoverage/story?id=2762610&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
Beautiful.
“We stupidly sided with Saddam.”
Do you know what was the nature of the support? Did he get money? Conventional weapons? Good oil deals?
The people who claim that the US supplied Iraq with WMD assume that that was part of the support Iraq received from the US during that time. I don’t know if it is true or not. But I think you’ll have to address the issue of WMD from this angle too if you want to refute the allegations that the US is somehow responsible to tthe WMD of Iraq. In public opinion you are guilty until proven innocent.
Bill & Micha,
I think you’re dealing with what has become sloppy debating technique. Some facts get discussed so often that they become condensed and shorthanded in discussions with the passage of time.
I’m not sure what Mike (I have a wonderful new policy of just skipping his posts) is saying, but, from what you’ve reposted from his posts, I think there is a 50/50 point between what you’re saying and what he and many of the way-far left are saying. The U.S. didn’t actually sell Iraq or Saddam fully finalized WMDs. However, “we sold Saddam the weapons” has become the shorthand version of the full argument (and even I’m guilty of often saying it to save time rather then going into all the details.)
The argument is based on a long series of events from the early to mid 80’s. Back in 1982, during the Iran/Iraq war, the Reagan-Bush administration took Iraq off its list of countries that support terrorism and sold Saddam conventional weapons. By 1983, Iraq launched chemical weapons attacks on Iran. The U.S. State Dept. said that the United States strongly condemned the prohibited use of chemical weapons wherever it occurs, but this condemnation was not backed by any official action. Actually, Reagan-Bush then restored full diplomatic relations with Iraq, supplied Iraq intelligence information to help fight Iran, allowed American corporations to sell Saddam dual-use technologies and biological materials suitable for weapons use and then extended Iraq more than $1 billion of loan credits. This is where many start to see “the U.S. giving Iraq WMD’s.”
Rumsfeld didn’t even criticize the use of WMD’s in his infamous visit with Saddam. All he did was, if all reports are true, mention in passing that use of such tactics made U.S. support of Iraq more difficult.
By 1988, Saddam had used his illegal weapons stockpiles against the Kurds. Many in the Senate wanted resolutions for sanctions against Iraq, but these were blocked by the White House under Reagan and Bush Sr. We then had U.S. companies sell even more questionable items to Saddam with a nudge, a wink and a blessing from Reagan and Bush Sr.
(Slightly condensed) Michael Dobbs, Washington Post (12/30/03):
Iraq’s gassing of the Kurds “provoked outrage on Capitol Hill and renewed demands for sanctions against Iraq. The State Dept. and White House were also outraged – but not to the point of doing anything that might seriously damage relations with Baghdad. “Although US arms manufacturers were not as deeply involved as German or British companies selling weaponry to Iraq, the Reagan administration effectively turned a blind eye to the export of “dual use” items such as precursors for chemical weapons and steel tubes that can have military and civilian applications. In December of 1988, Dow Chemical sold $1.5 million of pesticides to Iraq which could be used as chemical warfare agents.”
If you, Bill, have a history of setting fire to the houses of people you hate, then we shouldn’t give you the materials to set more fires. The law steps in and says that no one is allowed to sell you matches, lighters or flints. I want to make money. I go to you and sell you magnifying lenses, paper thin balsa wood slats and alcohol. Hey, they ‘re all things that a teacher can claim legitimate work uses for. Sure, they’re duel use. Yeah, they can be used to set the odd noontime house fire. But I know that you, despite your history, would never (nudge, nudge) use them in THAT manner. My conscience is clean.
Same with the U.S. and Saddam from before 1983 and up through Gulf War I. We knew what he was and we knew what he would do. We didn’t actually sell him WMD’s, but we dámņ sure gave him all the tools, support and basic supplies to crank out huge amounts of biological and chemical weapons right after he showed the world just how much he liked to use them.
And why did we do this? Per National Security Defense Directive 114 and a sworn affidavit from former National Security Council official Howard Teicher, “any major reversal of Iraq’s fortunes is a strategic defeat for the West.”
Like many U.S. actions in the Middle East, our leaders were on shaky moral ground and just didn’t care. They did things and allowed things that common sense would have told a five year old was the wrong thing to do. But they once again screwed us all over by dealing with “their” devil over “a” devil for “the greater good.”
All of that often gets shorthanded by people into being “the U.S. sold Saddam the WMD’s that he used in his crimes” or “we still have the receipts.” Some of us use the shorthand version but will explain some of that mess if asked and some (who are less lazy then I and will do craploads of net searches) will go into even greater detail with links out the backside. Others, who shall go nameless and unmentioned, say it because they actually seem to believe that we sent Rumsfeld himself over there with the weaponized WMD supplies stuffed in his carry on luggage bags and personally handed them to Saddam.
From what I’ve found the nature of most of the support Iraq got from the USA was of “dual purpose” nnature–computers, etc, things that could be used for peaceful purposes but easily converted into something more sinister. Even the biological agents were supposedly for vaccine manufacturing and may well have been used as such–I still wouldn’t be sending someone like that anything of that nature. If anthrax is such a big problem for him he shouldn’t have any trouble getting his own samples.
I’m not much interested in refuting the perception that we gave Saddam his chemical WMD–nothing I can say will convince some of those who have invested too much into this idea. Isn’t there a quote somewhere about how impossible it is to use logic to change someone’s mind from an opinion they arrived at through illogic? What interests me is that I had assumed there was much more to this idea than there seems to be. You keep hearing people say something and you assume there has to be SOMETHING to back it up.
“What interests me is that I had assumed there was much more to this idea than there seems to be. You keep hearing people say something and you assume there has to be SOMETHING to back it up”
There is quite a bit, but it’s evidence of a very subjective nature. I think it depends on your personal biases.
You hear an odd and disturbing sound come from the house next door. You look out your window and see a young woman covered in blood and carrying a large butcher’s knife walking slowly down the steps and then slowly down the street. You call 9-1-1 and then, after losing the fight with your better judgment, head over to the house. You step inside the house and enter the living room where you see a man, unmoving and quite dead, laying in a pool of his own blood. The multiple knife wounds are easy to see.
What has just happened?
With just that little bit of information, can you say that you know what happened for sure? No. But your biases are going to lead you to your first guess (and strongest belief) about what has transpired.
She killed him in cold blood.
He was beating her and she acted in self defense.
She walked into the house after a day out and found her loved one dead on the floor. She screamed, saw the knife, picked it up, stared at it for a few moments and then staggered away as her mind shut down due to extreme shock.
He got bit by a “bum” the night before and got ill, died in his sleep, re-animated by morning and then attacked her. She killed him again, but not before receiving fatal wounds herself. The blood on the floor is actually hers and not his. She then re-animated later that day and staggered out the door while still clutching the knife she stabbed into his undead brain with before dieing herself.
Who knows? If you never get any more information then that, you never will know for sure what happened in that house before you arrived. That won’t stop most people from talking about what “actually happened” for years to come.
It’s kind of the same here. Tons of stuff happened in Iraq and in our White House and much of it was documented in that eight year period. Lots of it has been put on display. None of it is truly definitive. Your own bias is going to color how you see it. I tend to see it as showing that the powers that be in the U.S. intentionally allowed Saddam to be specifically equipped to produce the same weapons that we’ve come to condemn Saddam for possessing and using. I know people who look at all of that stuff and more and say that it means exactly squat.
Barring a complete declassification of all White House and government documents from that era or a deathbed attempt to wipe past sins clean, we’ll never be able to truly make a completely definitive statement about what happened in this time period and why. But we can have so much fun arguing about what it all actually means for years and years to come.
🙂
Jerry, one thing I wanted to make clear–my last post was written before I could read your second to last one, it wasn’t a reply.
You make good points and your view on things is far more persuasive than the “shorthand” (which, by leaving out any detail that doesn’t support it, ends up looking weak).
I tend to see it as showing that the powers that be in the U.S. intentionally allowed Saddam to be specifically equipped to produce the same weapons that we’ve come to condemn Saddam for possessing and using. I know people who look at all of that stuff and more and say that it means exactly squat.
I still think this is going to far–were that the case they should have left those companies alone instead of stopping them. And those companies sure went through a lot of trouble to appear as though they were doing something that did not have the sanction of the US government.
I would also point out that it is not terribly logical to intentionally allow even an ally to make and stockpile, much less use, chemical weapons. Even if one assumes the very worst of our government, such a policy makes no sense. Why encourage the use of weapons we can’t sell? I’d sooner believe the argument that our only objection to chemical and biological weapons is purely a financial one–better to sell them guns and rockets and replacement parts. WMDs are for those too poor to afford a decent defense.
I’m always willing to listen to conspiracy theories and the like but at the very least one should demand that they have an internal logic. When they make no sense–“Johnson killed Kennedy and the CIA has murdered everyone who has come close to the truth including Jackie O and Marilyn Monroe and Malcolm X but they have left me, Joe Whackjob, alive because they know if they kill me the secret will be out.”–they lose me.
All this does make me wonder about something I alluded to before–given how our old relationship with Iraq blew up in our faces how can anyone seriously suggest, as many now do, that we must engage Iran and Syria? Given the nuts in charge there now, given what they have said and done, it doesn’t take Jean Dixon to predict that any such actions could be even more of a disaster. Ditto the Palestinians–hëll, how much of the money that has gone to them has been either stolen or used for crimes against humanity?
If we condemn–as perhaps we should–former leaders for looking the other way when dealing with yesterdays thugs, how can we seriously suggest the likely repetition of that error today?
Anyway…Jerry, Bill, PAD, Sasha, Micha, Craig, Tim, Bobb, the professor and Mary Ann, and the rest, heck, even Mike and the Squirrels–Have a Happy New Year. Here’s to 2007. May it not suck.
Will things be better with Saddam executed. I doubt it. Will they get worse? I am skeptical, but only because it is such a mess already. (Yes, even though I support the war, I do believe it is a mess.)
Was justice done? Absolutely. There is a case to be made that the death penalty is not necessary or always the best option. But after much thought, I am convinced the death penalty is just when it is applied to the right person. In this case, there is no doubt.
While governments are not perfect, as PAD points out, I believe there is an important difference when a government executes someone versus an individual.
Bottom line, with all due respect to PAD, I don’t seem much downside to Saddam’s execution.
Iowa Jim
“I still think this is going to far–“
Maybe, maybe not. As I said, there is more info and details out there. Some of it is of a stronger nature of persuasion and some of it is weaker. My personal bias in these cases tends to make me go with the more pessimistic of the choices when looking at what may have been done and why. And this particular bias isn’t a Republican VS Democrat kind of thing. This one is more along the lines of my not really trusting most of the people in the halls of power up on the big hill, R or D, to do the right thing when given the chance and from working so closely around so many politicians from all sides of the isle.
“–were that the case they should have left those companies alone instead of stopping them.”
P.R.? Deniability? How much has come out about what the government has done or allowed to be done on the sly that it shouldn’t have or that it denied in just our lifetimes? They’ve had to change the official start date of the Vietnam War on a number of memorials because quite a few years ago the “official” date the war started was moved back to an earlier starting point with the declassification of government papers. Why? Because we were over there when we were being told that we had no men in that country and we were doing things that our leaders of the time claimed that we wouldn’t be doing. Iran/Contra was a huge public mess when it leaked. How many total $**th***$ out there have been backed and praised by the U.S. only to turn out to be just slightly less vile then the “bad guy” that we chose not to back?
“…logical to intentionally allow even an ally to make and stockpile, much less use, chemical weapons.”
Ohhhhhh. You want to use a logic based ideal when talking about our government’s actions and decisions and the U.S. government’s history of foreign policy blunders? Well, I guess it’s a novel concept that ought to be tried at least once in a while. I’m just not to sure that the powers that be share your ability for logic. Thus my bias towards the idea that government did (and still does) really dumb and shortsighted things because it seems like a swell idea to someone in charge at the time.
Hmmmm. That last paragraph is not meant to be as drippingly sarcastic towards you as it probably reads. It’s actually meant to be drippingly sarcastic towards our many “leaders” from the last several decades. I just can’t quite write it right.
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Anywho….
Happy New Year to everybody here. Here’s hoping that ALL of you stay healthy and well and may the upcoming year give us even more fun stuff to gripe and moan about in these electronic pages. Jeers.
I think the whole idea that Saddam as a high-profile martyr arguement is a little silly. These people have a hated each other for around 1500 years. They don’t need martyrs. They may say they are doing it for Saddam but they would still do what they will do regardless, they would just use a different excuse.
I haven’t had time to read the entire thread so I can’t comment on anything of substance yet. I can only say this…
It’s 2007 and what’s the first thing I notice in PAD’s blog? Yet another reference to squirrels. This, I am sure, will be my epitaph.
Nevertheless… Happy New Year everyone!!!!!!!!!!!
Happy New Year, Evil Twin, and to all the blogzombies herein.
Jerry C’s bit about figuring out the details of a killing, the chick with the knife he was talking about in an earlier post, reminds me of something in a Chris Moore novel; there’s a bit in, I think, Bloodsucking Fiends, where a cop is lamenting the simple days of open-and-shut cases, when you’d walk into the crime scene and there’d be a man with a smoking gun in his hand, standing over the body of his dead wife, and all he can say is “Liver and onions”…
And of course, my damaged brain, all cross-circuited, immediately switches over to the bit in Moore’s “Lust Lizard”, where our pothead constable, Theophilus Crowe, is trying to explain to the EMTs that the late Bess Leander was not Amish, that she was just a neatfreak who liked that style of decor, whereupon one of the EMTs tells the other that she was Mennonite. Amish with blenders.
Sorry. I’m a little loopy this morning. Galloping cats at 0400. One cup of coffee. Matt Broderick and Nathan Lane sang me to sleep last night. The Producers is on HBO.
I really need to do the Arthur Clarke thing and move to a tropical island as far away from other humans as I can. Mornings like this I’m a danger to humanity and myself. Maybe another cigarette will help.
Bill, I’m searching for the quotes you are citing and can’t find them.
Is your denial “the worst thing I’ve been able to find was our sending biological samples to Iraq such as anthrax” grounded in reality?
…and I don’t mean the quote as standalone:
If you’re going to hold other countries to what their corporations do, holding the US involvement only to the actions of the government does not qualify as Normal Psychology.™
I notice a lot of “pro-lifers” are also in favor of the death penalty. Case in point:
In the clone thread Iowa Jim states “the staunch pro-life crowd (of which I am a part)”, but in this thread he says “I am convinced the death penalty is just when it is applied to the right person.”.
Dictionary.com defines Staunch as “Firm and steadfast”.
Where is the dividing line between “staunch pro-life” & “okay to kill”, and who decides it?
Well, “the video” is all over the web (as predicted by one Mike Malloy) and I have to give it two thumbs down. Unnecessary, unsettling, and pointless…kind of like certain political figures and pundits I can think of.
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. >>>
It cost 10 bucks to buy a rope from Home Depot, and probably fifty bucks to build a stage to toss someone over and hang them from it.
60 bucks vs 9 million. I think Iraq went the cheap route there.
Don’t let anyone stop you from packing your bags and moving there.
“I notice a lot of “pro-lifers” are also in favor of the death penalty. Case in point:
In the clone thread Iowa Jim states “the staunch pro-life crowd (of which I am a part)”, but in this thread he says “I am convinced the death penalty is just when it is applied to the right person.”.
Dictionary.com defines Staunch as “Firm and steadfast”.
Where is the dividing line between “staunch pro-life” & “okay to kill”, and who decides it? “
Michael, I disagree with Iowa Jim over many things. But I think the arguments of ‘our’ side should be fair and honest.
1) We all agree that adults (and children up to a certain age) who have committed crimes should be punished.
2) We all agree that babies are innocent (leaving aside the original sin issue) and should not be punished, certainly not killed.
3) We all agree that life is sacred (or an equivalent secular word I can’t think of right now).
The disagreements are about:
1) Whether or not execution is a proper form of punishment for criminal adults (and children up to a certain age).
2) At what stage should fetuses be considered babies.
There is no contradiction in opposing abortion and supporting capital punishment, or vice versa. If we argue about these issues, as we should, we should use proper arguments.
As a personal favor to me, as much as possible, please don’t use dictionary definitions to make your point. It doesn’t really help.
Opposing abortion and supporting capital punishment are contradictions when your stated reason for opposing abortion is to preserve life. Otherwise, what secular standing does anyone have to oppose abortion?
“Opposing abortion and supporting capital punishment are contradictions when your stated reason for opposing abortion is to preserve life. Otherwise, what secular standing does anyone have to oppose abortion?”
To preserve innocent life (or at least something they consider innocent life).
Neither pro-lifers nor those who opppose capital punishment are not necessarily pacifists, although wars also involve the loss of life.
You don’t seriously expect to get credit for a qualification you can’t define, do you?
You don’t seriously expect me to start another pointless, going around in circles debate with you?
Bye bye Mike.
I don’t blame you for leaving. If we aren’t supposed to go by anything you say, why do you bother posting here?
“why do you bother posting here?”
I post for the benefit of having serious discussions with serious (but sometimes fun) people. I’m not leaving.
why do YOU bother posting here?
If you oppose abortions because you say “all life is sacred”, then supporting the death penalty is a contradiction, because now you’re saying that some life isn’t sacred.
And yes, I know prisoners occasionally escape, but it’s an extremely rare event.
——–
To preserve innocent life (or at least something they consider innocent life).
Since the fanatic anti-abortionists who kill doctors & other women’s clinic employees use this argument, it brings me back to my original question:
Where is the dividing line between “staunch pro-life” & “okay to kill”, and who decides it?
One person’s preserving innocent life is another person’s murder.
Why do you ask?
You removed the qualifier to my question. Why don’t you answer my question in its Context™?
Bill, I’m searching for the quotes you are citing and can’t find them.
I thought that was fairly obvious to anyone who’s been following the thread. Did I make the second one insufficiantly stupid sounding? Oh well, my bad.
Is your denial “the worst thing I’ve been able to find was our sending biological samples to Iraq such as anthrax” grounded in reality?
I think that’s a statement, not a denial. And what part is unreal to you?
If you’re going to hold other countries to what their corporations do, holding the US involvement only to the actions of the government does not qualify as Normal Psychology.™
Wow, that one crack really got under your skin, eh? Must be a great story there–tell it to someone some time.
And I see from your arguing with Micha that you’re really taken with the whole TM superscript joke. Well, good for you. The Lennie stuff was getting a bit shopworn. But don’t overuse it or you’ll have to come up with something else. How about “…NOT!”
I don’t hold the German government necessarily responsible for the actions of a few rogue companies…though you must admit they seem to be far less vigilant than the US has been in keeping tabs on their companies.
My point, which I think is not hard to grasp, was that the oft repeated chestnut about the USA being the source of the chemical weapons used against the Kurds is simplistic at best, a deliberate lie at worst (assuming we have all the information, of course). That should only bother those who have a vested interest in portraying the United States in as bad a light as possible.
Re “pro-life” and capital punishment—It does sound ludicrous to be “pro-life” and in favor of killing someone…but it’s also ludicrous to be “pro-choice” and be against my being able to choose to buy Playboy, which would certainly describe most of the hardcore feminists I went to college with.
Just as the “choice” they are for is confined to one particular issue, the “life” the pro-lifers are pro about is a particular kind of life. But these are pretty minor points on an issue that is already full of too many distractions.
Thank you for admitting your use of strawmen was deliberate.
No one should believe anything you say, not even “Hello.”
Pitiful.
That Alcolac shipping 400 tons of mustard-like gas to Saddam Hussein, for one example, somehow does not exceed the severity of “sending biological samples to Iraq.”
To preserve innocent life (or at least something they consider innocent life).
Since the fanatic anti-abortionists who kill doctors & other women’s clinic employees use this argument, it brings me back to my original question:
Where is the dividing line between “staunch pro-life” & “okay to kill”, and who decides it?
One person’s preserving innocent life is another person’s murder.
————————————————————————————————-
If you have to grasp for the most extreme examples of the lunatic fringe who claim to share your opponent’s views, you’ve pretty much admitted that you’ve got no real ammo for your side of the debate. No one here has said that killing doctors to protect the unborn is a good thing.
I’m for the death penalty while being against some forms of abortion and some aspects of it. I have a number of friends who are pro-death penalty and wildly anti-abortion. It’s very easy to hold the two ideals without moral or ideological contradictions presenting themselves.
At some point in its development, even pro-choice people recognize what’s in a woman’s womb is a viable life. An unborn baby has done nothing to anyone and committed no crime. It has earned itself no form of punishment for any of its actions.
A murderer HAS committed a crime. A murderer has committed what many societies throughout history have long seen as one of the ultimate crimes. Thus, a murderer has earned one of society’s ultimate punishments. The murderer’s own life is now forfeit. The murderer is put to death.
Now, someone here has asked how society committing a “murder” is somehow right and just if the murderer doing the same is wrong. Simple. The death penalty is not murder. It’s punishment. We’ve passed laws that say that you can not take another person’s life without facing punishments for that crime that can include death itself. Our laws are also quite clear that it is the State’s job to carry out those punishments.
I find it funny that the anti-capital punishment crowd throw that one out there but don’t hold other legal rulings or punishments to that standard. Murder is illegal – State sanctioned murder must therefore be wrong as well. Well, it’s illegal to hold someone against their will in this country. It’s a crime. Wouldn’t life in prison be the State breaking the law by holding that person against their will? Why wouldn’t that be wrong too? Hey, a crimes a crime. Why not at least be consistent with your arguments?
If a woman finds out that she’s pregnant and decides to have an abortion at around her eighth to tenth week, then, according to the pro-choice crowd, she’s just made a choice to terminate her pregnancy and that’s fine and dandy. If a man mugs a woman in the park who is in her eighth to tenth week and causes the death of the fetus, then he’s committed an evil and more vile crime then the mugging, killed her baby and must receive a greater punishment for this crime. Both those positions are basically fine with me. Why? Intent and circumstances. If the woman who was mugged intended to give birth to the child then that changes the circumstances of the child’s death and the guy killed her baby.
Some may attack the concept of intent and circumstances as weak, but it is something that comes into play when discussing laws, crimes and punishments. Killing someone in the heat of the moment is not seen as the same level of offense as the pre-planned murder of an individual. Planning to kill Joe Average is seen as a different level of offense then planning to kill a political or religious figure in order cause panic, riots or some form of societal breakdown. All of the above is “murder.” It’s just the intent of the murderer and the circumstances around that act that changes how we view the crime.
Intent and circumstances also comes into play in other areas. You take out your rifle, you aim at a man’s head and you introduce his brains to the outside world. If you do that from your bedroom window while aiming at some random guy on the street, then you’re a murderer. If you’re a Special Forces Sniper who is taking out a hostile target who’s continued existence guarantees the deaths of thousands of innocents and a prolonged military conflict, then they call you a patriot. If you’re a Police Sharpshooter who takes out a man who has just killed eight hostages and is about to kill another, then they call you a hero. It’s a matter of intent and circumstances.
One of my things with capital punishment is based partly on intent and circumstances. The murderer’s intent is to take a life for, likely, no very good reason. The State’s intent in performing capital punishment is to remove one of the lowest of the low from society. The circumstances are doing so after the individual has been tried by a jury of one’s peers, been found guilty and then sentenced to death.
There are lots of other arguments out there as well. I’ll give you one of the stranger ones I’ve heard just because I’ve never come across it anywhere else.
I have a friend who has a weirdly novel argument for support of the death penalty that I don’t quite agree with, but it’s kind of interesting in a strange way. He feels that the death penalty is just fine because a murderer has chosen to die through his actions while the victim didn’t. He looks at it like theft vs gambling. He feels that people have a legitimate complaint when they’ve had money stolen from them. He thinks people should just shut the hëll up around him when they’re moaning on about they $500 they lost on vacation while trying to get more money by gambling. They knew that the big risk with gambling with that $500 was that they could walk away with nothing. He feels that a murderer is basically gambling with their life rather then their cash. They knew the risks, they knew that they were gambling their own life if they got caught, but they still did it. They get caught and they end up maybe walking away with nothing.
Like I said, I don’t quite agree with him. The concept is, bizarrely, kind of sound, but it does take a really strange turn somewhere.
Thank you for admitting your use of strawmen was deliberate.
No one should believe anything you say, not even “Hello.”
I see your New Years Resolution to be as useful as possible to those Abnormal Psychology Students From the Future (APSFTF) is holding up nicely. Good job!
Why don’t you trademark “thank you for agreeing with me that (stupid point nobody but you would make)” and “pitiful” while you’re at it? I think you could make a good case that, at least here on this board, when we see the word “pitiful” yours is the first name we think of. That’s effective branding!
That Alcolac shipping 400 tons of mustard-like gas to Saddam Hussein, for one example, somehow does not exceed the severity of “sending biological samples to Iraq.”
Yeah, putz, the worst thing I found in my search was the bilogicals. You found the article that, whatvere its other falws, DID bring up Alcolac. I accepted this as a fact. So what’s your problem?
No, the other problem.
No, no, not that problem either…oh forget it.
I find it funny that the anti-capital punishment crowd throw that one out there but don’t hold other legal rulings or punishments to that standard. Murder is illegal – State sanctioned murder must therefore be wrong as well. Well, it’s illegal to hold someone against their will in this country. It’s a crime. Wouldn’t life in prison be the State breaking the law by holding that person against their will? Why wouldn’t that be wrong too? Hey, a crimes a crime. Why not at least be consistent with your arguments?
Oddly, I agree with that (and I’m anti-death penalty). Never really liked the “this makes us no better than they are” argument.
But…I still think it’s dangerous to allow the State to have such power. Easily abused and, unlike imprisonment, no possibility of restitution exists.
Michael Brunner, Jerry Chandler did a better job than I could replying to you.
“If you oppose abortions because you say “all life is sacred”, then supporting the death penalty is a contradiction, because now you’re saying that some life isn’t sacred.”
I believe there are some people who actually oppose capital punishment and abortion on the basis of the sacredness of life. For example the Catholic Church. But others only oppose the killing of what they consider innocent babies, but support the killing of guilty criminals. There is no inconsistency there.
I’m pro-choice and anti capital punishment, I don’t want to use facile arguments to make my case.
Just as I don’t want somebody to tell me that if I support the choice of a woman to have abbortion I should support her choice to kill her one year old baby, (or I should support the choice of people to own firearms without any restriction), similarly I don’t want to present the pro-life argument in such simplistic terms. I’d rather argue with them on the merits of their point of view.
“why do YOU bother posting here?
Why do you ask?
You removed the qualifier to my question. Why don’t you answer my question in its Context™?”
Mike, are you Jewish?
Answering questions with questions is a stereotype associated with Jews (and psychiatrists). Of course, in the case of Jews it’s usually associated with a sense of irony and humor. Maybe you’re just half-Jewish? (I hope you understand that this is irony and humor.)
I also hope you are not going to copyright the word context. Something tells me I’m going to continue needing it if you’re going to remain on this board.
Back to the original issue. apparently the Muslim world is in an uproar because Saddam was executed on the Id al Adha (the holiday of the sacrifice). This is considered extremely inappropriate. But apparently the Shia did it in order to stick it to the Suni, because the Shia celebrate the Id al Adha a day after the Suni.
I hope everyone had a nice (insert politically correct holiday greeting). As someone who works in state government, I see the kind of people who work here and there’s no way I’d trust any of them with the power to decide who deserves to live and who deserves to die. And that’s what you do when you give states the power of a the death penalty. So, I am against the death penalty for that reason: the incompetence of government.
That said, I can see Saddam’s execution as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, he’s now a martyr for his supporters. On the other, the people who feared his possible return to power can rest assured now.
BTW, if anyone saw Michelle Malkin’s blog last week, I think she had a full-on orgasm when Saddam was executed.
As an admitted deliberate liar, by what virtue do you continue to debate anyone here?
You admitted to “[starting] pointless, going around in circles debate[s.]” That is the basis for me asking why you post here. On what grounds do you ask me the same question?
What “continue?” When are you going find one instance where I’ve excluded part of the discourse that surrounded a quote I’ve cited crucial to the quote’s interpretation?
Oooh. “An unborn baby has done nothing to anyone and committed no crime.”
Didn’t the Governor of Illinois put a halt to executions because the death penalty killed people who weren’t guilty of the crimes they were convicted of?
Doesn’t that unambiguously mean opposing abortion to preserve innocent life and supporting the death penalty the kills people for crimes they haven’t committed is inherently inconsistent?
“…by what virtue do you continue to debate anyone here?”
Bill Mulligan continues debate people here by the same “virtue” that you, and everyone else who participates in this blog, does: by “virtue” of Peter David’s willingness to allow us to do so.
No one else is unapologetically lying while holding others to the standard of The Right Thing To Do.™
Blaming everyone but Bill for what Bill does. Pitiful.
“You admitted to “[starting] pointless, going around in circles debate[s.]” That is the basis for me asking why you post here. On what grounds do you ask me the same question?”
There are other people on this board except you who are interested in engaging in serious but fun and friendly discussions. I post here because I enjoy conversing with them. I’m also reading some of Peter David comics, and enjoy them very much. I’m a fan of his work. And you know what, Mike. In your own way you also provide me with some form of entertainment, although not in the form of interesting discussions. So hppy new year.
I asked you why you post, because I don’t really understand the worth of drawing people into snarky, pointless, going around in circle arguments. You are clearly not interesting in enriching yourself or others by such posts. And since you tend to be nasty to most if not all, having compllete disregard to their points of view or feelings, I doubt you seek friendly conversation. it’s a shame really.
“When are you going find one instance where I’ve excluded part of the discourse that surrounded a quote I’ve cited crucial to the quote’s interpretation?”
As you recall in one infamous thread you totally ignored the context of a significant term, thus misusing the term. It was this case, in which taking things out of context was the most blatant and reprehensible. This was the only time where I actually went to a great effort to show how you were using the term out of context. This prooved pointless, since your purpose in the discussion was not to understand better this significant historical term as much as to play language games. In any case, that’s the first and most significant example.
In the same thread you have also misrepresented the opinion of another person, trying to make it seem as if he’s supporting your position, although he was doing exactly the opposite, as he himself repeatedly stated. In this case it was clear you were not interested in his opinion,as much as you enjoyed reversing it by ignoring the ironic context of his statement you were quoting. That’s the second example.
This disappointing discussion started because you insisted on reading a well articulated position by Bill Mulligan about Hate Crime laws as racism, which included quoting one of his statements out of context of his whole argument. This was probably you original sin, instead of debating Bill on the merits of his argument, you went on and on attaching an out of context meaning to a few words you took out of his posts. That three.
The fourth example was when you were engaging Bill Myers in a discussion about empeacing Bush. Many people in that thread presented good points of view about why Bush should or should not be impeached and removed from office, or just go through the process of impeachment in order to cause him to change direction. It was quite interesting and enriching. But you prefered to ignore Bill Myers coherent arguments in order to make it seem that he does not know the meaning of the term inpeachment, although it was clear that he does.
The forth case was the strange attempt during a discussion about a statement incorrectly attributed to Bush, to make it seem that Bill Mulligan agrees with you, while at the same time condemning him for not agreeing with you.
In all these cases you could have seriously debated on the issues addressing people’s opinions as stateted in their posts, and presenting your own point of view. But instead you chose to grab segments from what they were saying, or from a dictionary definition, and ignore the context in which they appeared. This has made serious discussion with you pointless.
This post is probably pointless too, since I take it for granted Mike, that you will respond in your usual manner. But there is something I’m trying to avoid doing, and this is as good a way as any.