Issue Date: 1/16/07
Hanging Hussein obviously proper
By Helle Dale
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Hard as it is to imagine, some people around the world are taking exception to the execution of Saddam Hussein.
If ever there were a candidate for the death penalty, surely Saddam would be it - a dictator who ruled by cruelty and terror, slaughtering his own people in the name of control. Respect for human life, one would think, leads to the conclusion that someone who acts with such profound contempt for its value, and does it on such a scale, forfeits the right to his own.
Saddam displayed no remorse whatsoever, even in his final moments. The unfortunate cell phone video recording of his execution, displaying shouting and cursing from the audience and defiance from the convicted, indicates that Saddam was someone whose ego had not been dented by doubts about what he had done to Iraq. Dictators from Fidel Castro to Slobodan Milosevic tend to exhibit the same imperviousness to acknowledgement of the evils they have done. Their hard protective shell does not allow for remorse or pity for their victims.
Some have fallen for the ploy of Saddam's final letter, which called for Iraqis "not to hate, because hatred does not leave space for a person to be fair." To think of Saddam as a leader in national reconciliation is amazing, but some people do. A friend of mine who met Saddam Hussein in the 1980s said Hussein justified the mass murder by chemical weapons of 5,000 Iraqi Kurds as the need to impose discipline. That was Saddam's way of effecting national reconciliation when he was in power.
Others feel that a national leader should not be subject to the death penalty. That would mean that murdering people on a grand scale, in the fashion of Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot, makes you less culpable than murdering people on a one-on-one basis. Obviously, this argument makes no sense.
Unfortunately, the argument that so far has surfaced the most is that Saddam's trial was the victor's justice carried out by a puppet government. In the words of one writer on the BBC Web site, it was a "sordid, barbaric climax to a series of events triggered in the name of democracy and justice yet mired in the lies, deception and moral jingoism of two governments whose own conduct became no better than that of the man they deposed. For Iraqis, justice may have prevailed, but the arrogance and sheer political incompetence of the United States and the whole of the British Labor party (for they are all responsible) has left a terrible legacy that will fester throughout the world for decades to come."
If ever there were a candidate for the death penalty, surely Saddam would be it - a dictator who ruled by cruelty and terror, slaughtering his own people in the name of control. Respect for human life, one would think, leads to the conclusion that someone who acts with such profound contempt for its value, and does it on such a scale, forfeits the right to his own.
Saddam displayed no remorse whatsoever, even in his final moments. The unfortunate cell phone video recording of his execution, displaying shouting and cursing from the audience and defiance from the convicted, indicates that Saddam was someone whose ego had not been dented by doubts about what he had done to Iraq. Dictators from Fidel Castro to Slobodan Milosevic tend to exhibit the same imperviousness to acknowledgement of the evils they have done. Their hard protective shell does not allow for remorse or pity for their victims.
Some have fallen for the ploy of Saddam's final letter, which called for Iraqis "not to hate, because hatred does not leave space for a person to be fair." To think of Saddam as a leader in national reconciliation is amazing, but some people do. A friend of mine who met Saddam Hussein in the 1980s said Hussein justified the mass murder by chemical weapons of 5,000 Iraqi Kurds as the need to impose discipline. That was Saddam's way of effecting national reconciliation when he was in power.
Others feel that a national leader should not be subject to the death penalty. That would mean that murdering people on a grand scale, in the fashion of Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot, makes you less culpable than murdering people on a one-on-one basis. Obviously, this argument makes no sense.
Unfortunately, the argument that so far has surfaced the most is that Saddam's trial was the victor's justice carried out by a puppet government. In the words of one writer on the BBC Web site, it was a "sordid, barbaric climax to a series of events triggered in the name of democracy and justice yet mired in the lies, deception and moral jingoism of two governments whose own conduct became no better than that of the man they deposed. For Iraqis, justice may have prevailed, but the arrogance and sheer political incompetence of the United States and the whole of the British Labor party (for they are all responsible) has left a terrible legacy that will fester throughout the world for decades to come."
Viewing Comments 1 - 2 of 2
William
posted 1/18/07 @ 11:15 AM PST
Crimes or not, the videos show the unruliness of the whole situation. Glad to know that Iraq can't even keep a small room of people under control, wonder how it's going to work when they're handed the entire country. (Continued…)
Chris Holmes
posted 2/08/07 @ 4:18 PM PST
I am a former Palomar student and writer/editor for the Telescope many years ago. I am pleased to see how far the paper has come and the exceptional level of writing demonstrated by the students currently on staff. (Continued…)
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