For some reason I feel almost obligated to pass comment on Saddam Hussein and his death sentence. So.. yeah, errmm it's was the verdict everyone knew it was going to be the minute he was captured, there are only two difference between now and then. Firstly, they've spent lots of money having a trial, and second lots of people reckon it was a show trial and thus illegitimate. It's funny really that the same argument that perplexed Eisenhower and Churchill should hang over Hussein. Should you take him out and shoot him to save having a trial where the outcome is a foregone conclusion, or do you have the trial to be seen to be being just when you know that people will question its legitimacy.
I can't speak for 1945, but today it wouldn't matter which route was chosen as it would, for the chattering classes, be the wrong one. I've not seen the papers this morning, but I imagine after the initial first day of comment there will be those that satart questioning whether its right to hang him, whether the trial was fair etc. It's only a matter of time before someone suggests he be acquitted.
6 comments:
What ever he did, BushChimpHitler is much worse, (froth froth) and anyway, it should be an internal matter for peace loving Iraqis, who shouldn't be allowed the death penalty because its not modern and barbaric.
It wasn't a free trial, which we know because he was found guilty, even though George Galloway says he isn't.
Probably ExxonHalliburtonEnronShell will get the multimillion dollar contract for the rope, and we all know that they are in charge of BushChimpHitler anyway.
- There, I saved you the trouble of watching BBC or reading the Guardian.
I'm not a fan of the death penalty, maninly because I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea of the state having the power of life and death over us. That Saddam did have a full, and essentially fair, trial and was convicted of a pre-existing offence (I think) in some ways makes it more ethically vexing tham the 'trial' of the Ceausescus, which was little more than a hastily convened lynch mob.
Those arguments were well aired on the radio this morning, even Tony Blair could not agree to supporting the hanging of SH, the reporter kept trying to force him. The difficulty is the EU's opposition to capital punishment, regardless of the barbarity of the crime.
There are some crimes I would like to see the death penalty brought back for.
However, I have to agree with Croydonian's comment "extremely uncomfortable with the idea of the state having the power of life and death over us" purely on the basis that I have no faith in the present Government getting anything right, let alone trust them with life and death situations.
As for Sadam, well it's Iraq's call. I've tried to reason my view into giving him a life sentence, but I simply can't.
More rationally, I have never understood why the US troops did not just shoot him in his hole and claim he shot himself. This would ruin his legacy in Islamic eyes as taking your own life (not in a matrydom operation, of course) is to disgrace yourself.
Would have saved, time, money , stress and a lot more lives.
Speaking purely pragmatically, they should have dropped a fragmentation grenade in the hole.
Failing that they should have taken him to an iternational court of recognised integrity.
Stage-managed by the US right down to the wire — a little fillip for polling day in the US — no one in the streets of the Middle-East believe this trial was fair? (whatever outcome they wanted!).
The interesting question now (apart from what effect this has on the continuing disintegration of Iraq) is whether they will allow him to live long enough to run the other trials.
Who is going to risk what Saddam might say, what accomplices he might implicate, if he were to be tried over Halabja?
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