Bye-bye Saddam...

[Boerseun]

So, Saddam got sentenced to death by the Iraqi court, and he's to be executed within 30 days of a failed appeal.

 

Let's say the appeal does fail:

 

Saddam gets executed. Would this be a good thing? Won't this simply make a martyr of him? Won't this increase the threat level from extremists? They see the Iraqi court as an American instrument in any case, so they won't see Saddam as sentenced to death by fellow Iraqis.

 

What will the implications of this be? Won't it be better to have him incarcerated for the rest of his natural life, so that if and when evidence of more atrocities come to the fore in the future, he'll still be around to give evidence?

 

Imagine - a few years from now, evidence appears of Saddam having sold WMD technology to Osama bin Laden. And everybody's rushed to get the finer details. And then it strikes them: "Like, DUH! If only we didn't kill the guy! We could've got some primo testimony!"

 

Let's say Hitler didn't commit suicide, and was caught at the end of WW2. Would it be the right thing to do to execute him at Nurnberg? How many unanswered questions about what happened during the War could've been answered, if we still had access to the people sentenced to death at Nurnberg?

 

Is retribution more important than common sense? We needs the info! And this is info and answers to questions we haven't even thought of yet. But I'm sure if we don't kill dictators and warmongers, but only lock them up, at least the historians would be appreciative.

[Buffy]

In order to be a martyr, you need to have someone who has acted in the least bit martyr-like. Even among the Sunnis in Iraq, I think there's a limit to how much they *worship* him. To the extent that he represents their only claim to being able to rule Iraq--that is have power over the more populous Kurds and Shia--they would like to portray him as their leader/martyr-to-be, but I have strong doubts that this is actually going to go very far. Stalin and Mao had huge cults of personality, but they basically died along with the die hards who refused to see their evil.

 

The evidence today was that while there were some demonstrations in his home town of Tikrit denouncing the verdict, there were celebrations in the streets in Shia and Kurdish areas.

 

So with Hitler, I think its obvious if you're going to put Goerring and von Ribbetrop to death, its a no-brainer to do it to Hitler. Moreover, after the widespread forced work cleaning up the death camps and viewing of the ample evidence, there were few Germans who would support the Nazis. I think that one is pretty easy.

 

In my mind the argument against the death penalty based in it being "retribution" is specious, because life in prison is retribution too. The reason I oppose the death penalty personally is that *rarely* are there cases where there is no doubt left, as we have seen from all the people released from death row after having been shown innocent from new evidence (good ol' DNA! Science rocks!). When it comes to situations like Hitler, Stalin, or Saddam, where the evidence is irrefutable, and is on the scale of mass murder, there is no such concern, and it becomes potentially justified (we should probably leave this for another thread though, so lets just *grant* this one). At the point that it is potentially justified, and we don't have the unbelievably expensive appeal process, the death penalty is simply more expedient.

 

The last impediment is really the moral/religious belief that God--not man--should be the one to have a final judgement, and the Ten Commandments or other religious source proscribe such action. I'm not sure how to resolve that, but as a practical matter, for the same reason that he won't have the defenders to achieve martyrdom, I don't think there will be many who will argue that he should not be put to death.

 

Its not a clear issue by any means, but if you're trying to keep this purely to the level of geopolitical strategy, I don't think there's much of an argument that says save him because it will cause political problems in Iraq or elsewhere.

 

Personally, I would have him spend the rest of his life cleaning Shia sewers while being tortured each evening with cattle prods to the testicles and bamboo shoots under the fingernails, but that's just me. :Guns:

 

Stake him,

Buffy

[Boerseun]

Pretty good reply, your Buffness, but you missed my point... slightly...

 

I'm not arguing for or against the death penalty, I'm saying that putting someone like Saddam to death for the 1982 killings would be wrong simply because there are a lot of other issues he was involved in, in which he won't be able to testify once he's dead.

 

These issues might surface tomorrow, next week, next year, ten years from now. We don't know. But once we've killed him, he won't be able to stand trial for those issues still to come. He might be able in the future to shed light on issues we haven't even contemplated yet.

 

...and we'd keep the historians happy! :Guns: Imagine if you as a historian had full access to people like Von Ribbentrop et al in the 60's and 70's, before they died of old age - how much clearer would our insight be into the finer details of World War Two, a lot of which is conjecture currently, because we killed the people involved?

 

Someone who committed murder, a normal criminal, can't be viewed in the same light as these guys, simply because we know he killed a guy and he will therefore be put to death (that's a completely different argument). But the kind of people I'm talking about have committed atrocities that spanned borders and have shaped the world we currently live in. We need them alive for a host of reasons.

[Cedars]

OK but how valuable are they in regards to their willingness to contribute accurately to history? I read a few books, many years ago about the FBI profiling unit* and they had great struggles with the accuracy of the statements made from these people they were interviewing, partly because of their condition (being locked up) tended to make them exagerate the truth to encourage more contact, for ego, and a number of other reasons which escape me now.

 

And as far as them being here to ask if they committed a different crime, why would they confess to more? Or would they confess to any issue presented to them to keep contacts (read visits) going? Would a character like Sadam, even if he told someone something previously unknown be reliable or tend to make things up (such as creating a terrorist out of another head of state) to keep the people investigating such things running in circles?

 

So I am not sure that historians would really have an advantage by contact with persons in this imprisoned condition.

 

*not an endorsement about the profiling units ability to accurately predict anything

[TheFaithfulStone]

Okay, I personally don't understand why Saddam even had a trial. The trial may or may not have been fair, but it was such a big ordeal that someone would accuse it of not being fair, and frankly, the evidence was so overwhelming, that he really didn't stand a chance.

 

Plus, you know, he got a chance to make a mockery of the court with his little tirades.

 

The question I have is why not just have him declared insane, put him on massive amounts of psychoactive drugs, release a few minutes of video of him making faces out of macaroni or painting hand turkeys or something, and then after a few years have him quietly die of "liver failure" or "heart disease" <wink, wink, nudge, nudge>?

 

I seem to remember that had been the plan for Hitler if he didn't commit suicide, which was everyone's fervent hope. That they would have him declared insane and quietly bump him off later.

 

After all, what's less fear-inspiring than an old man in a paper gown sucking his thumb and mumbling about ants?

 

Otherwise, he's getting better than he deserves. I don't see any need to keep him alive for historical research. I doubt he would cooperate anyway.

 

TFS

[Zythryn]

On a strictly geopolitical level, I think Iraq and possibly the world would be better off with him dead.

I believe some of the strife in Iraq is due to some people thinking Saddam will return to power. They always will, until he is dead. Even if people don't fight towards that end, I think it is a recruitment point into the insurgent forces.

I think Iraq will be able to move on once this chapter is closed. Please note, I am not saying things will get better in Iraq, but I do believe they will stop getting worse.

[CraigD]

http://hypography.com/forums/philosophy-humanities/9071-bye-bye-saddam.html#post141346

 

So, Saddam got sentenced to death by the Iraqi court, and he's to be executed within 30 days of a failed appeal.

 

Let's say the appeal does fail:

 

Saddam gets executed. Would this be a good thing?

I think that depends on who you are.

 

Clearly, not a good thing for Saddam. Likely, not a good thing for the remnants of his Ba’ath political party, or the Sunni Muslim minority it kept in power for several decades.

 

For the Shi’a majority currently enjoying control of the Iraq government, Saddam’s execution is likely a good thing. As recent polls have shown, the apolitical majority of Iraqis are increasingly remembering Saddam with nostalgia as someone who - despite imprisoning and executing many people via a corrupt system of courts, and leading the country into the ruin of economic sanctions, and, ultimately, invasion and conquest - maintained order and security. For the current government, the prospect of Saddam surviving, and possibly regaining political power, is real and frightening.

 

For America, other western states, and Israel, it’s difficult to say if Saddam’s execution will be good or bad. Conventional wisdom is that, under Saddam, Iraq was a bulwark against the spread of Islamic theocracy in the middle east, effectively the last country there with a secular (if terribly corrupt) government. Recall that ex-president Saddam’s last vice-president was Christian, something almost unheard of in the Middle East. At the same time, he seemed personally committed to promoting terrorism in Israel, providing a “martyrs’ widows” fund for the families of suicide bombers. Whether the new Iraq, which will almost certainly be an Islamic theocracy, will be better or worse for the region and the world, I don’t think even experts can predict. Whether there will even be an Iraq in a couple of decades is uncertain – the possibility of northern, Kurdish Iraq being annexed to Turkey, the South to Iran and/or Saudi Arabia, is very real.

 

My guess – and it is very much a guess, as I have no direct or even second-hand experience with current Iraqi politics – is that the current Iraqi government would prefer to weather the likely inevitable surge of retaliatory violence now – especially as it presently has at its disposal the large, reliable, superior US military to assist in quelling this surge, something it may not enjoy a year or three hence – than live with the lingering possibility of a Ba’ath return to power if Saddam remains alive.

Won't this [saddam’s execution] simply make a martyr of him?

In order to be a martyr, you need to have someone who has acted in the least bit martyr-like.

More importantly, I think, someone alive must be around to take advantage of a martyr’s martyrdom. In the case of Saddam, there doesn’t appear to be anyone. Nearly all of his potential successors – children, cousins, high-ranking Ba’ath party members – are dead. While many Shi’a politicians are emerging as potiential long-term rulers of Iraq, the Sunni appear to be unable to join the contest. While Shi’a and Kurd politicians like Talabani, al-Maliki, and even al-Sadr, enjoy strong popular recognition, I can’t name even one comparable Sunni politician, and suspect that few Iraqis can, either.

 

In the minds of Shi’a politicians, I think, irreversibly getting rid or Saddam goes a long way toward “permanently” getting rid of Sunni political power.

[Michaelangelica]

So, Saddam got sentenced to death by the Iraqi court,

 

Saddam gets executed. Would this be a good thing? Won't this simply make a martyr of him? Won't this increase the threat level from extremists? They see the Iraqi court as an American instrument in any case, so they won't see Saddam as sentenced to death by fellow Iraqis.

 

.

The death penalty is barbaric and will make a martyr of Saddam.

It is not going to improve the Terror situation.

 

Is is just going to accentuate the religious differences and push the country closer to civil war.

 

He should be incarcerated for life.

 

Now that Bush has killed about twice as many Iraqis as Saddam

(Say,(ball park?), Saddam 30,000; Bush 60,000)

When is Bush going to be executed?

[GAHD]

Keeping this away from bush (there's a couple of threads dedicated to that cowboy) I'm with Boerseun on the historical value Idea.

 

@Cedars: A polygraph is always useful, or lots of drugs :eek_big:

[CraigD]

Okay, I personally don't understand why Saddam even had a trial.

I think the reason for the trial – as opposed to just shooting/stoning/hanging him on the spot – was to give the new Iraqi government legitimacy in the eyes of the world. Legitimate governments don’t just kill their citizens – they try them in court first.

 

In practical terms, I don’t think there was ever much chance of Saddam being killed without a trial. He was initially in US custody, and even after he was turned over to Iraqi jailors, the US maintained a strong position of oversight, taking extensive precautions to assure that nobody “got to him on the inside”. The only likely scenarios for his death without a trial were, I think, has he “come out shooting” when discovered and captured, or if he or his supporters had attempted a jailbreak.

The trial may or may not have been fair, but it was such a big ordeal that someone would accuse it of not being fair, and frankly, the evidence was so overwhelming, that he really didn't stand a chance.

This raises a major point – the central point of Saddam’s legal defense. The many people he killed – beginning with his 1979 “housecleaning”of the Ba’ath party, in which 22 “disloyal” politicians were executed – were accused, tried, and convicted – albeit by corrupt, sham court – prior to their execution. Even the mass killing of Kurds in 1983, ’88, and ’91 were carried out by the regular Iraqi military, with “authorization” of the government Saddam almost completely controlled. Saddam ordered a lot of killing, but did legally – a grim application of the “it’s good to be king” principle.

 

As far as I know, the prosecutions response to this defense was “well, you’re not king any more”. The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal has in essence declared that, at least as far as Saddam and his co-defendants are concerned, Iraq had no government with the authority to order executions between Saddam’s rise to power in the 1970s, and his fall in 2003.

 

Legal technicalities aside, the world community must have the ability to strip despots of the legal protection afforded them by their corrupt governments. Saddam was such a despot, his government deeply corrupt. I wonder, however, if those Iraqis currently in power may come to regret the precedent they are establishing by executing Saddam if, long after the US has left the country in their hands, the political winds turn, and they find themselves sentenced to death by a provisionally established tribunal? In such a turn of events, they may wish Saddam had been tried by the ICJ, as many non-coalition governments suggested.

[Michaelangelica]

, the world community must have the ability to strip despots of the legal protection afforded them by their corrupt governments. Saddam was such a despot, his government deeply corrupt..

Yes I agree with what you say CraigD; but why have we just started now on the "let's get rid of despots' theme? The Taliban we let take over Afghanistan (after the Russians left the US lost interest) and then given years to establish themselves with Al Quieda in their midst. Masoud the west's only hope here we let Al Quieda kill him

There have been so many "despots" and still are in the world (Pol Pot, Burma junta, N Korea, Tibet, middle Europe many African nations, etc etc etc. I hope the US has deep pockets to get rid of them all

Did we start this Iraq crusade more because politicians like Bush needed a distraction so not to show up their incompetence in dealing with the Islamic world?

 

So we keep Saddam alive as a sort of "living Book"? I'll vote for that

 

Is retribution more important than common sense?

Sadly, the answer is always "Yes." It just depends on who is holding the gun. Bush is a bigger murderer of Iraqis by far, but he is holding the gun.

This time, I am sure many Iraqis will soon seek their retribution on him.

(Thus the world - and armaments dealers- 'go round')

[TheBigDog]

The trial and execution of Saddam by the new Iraqi government will be symbolically far more powerful than the potential of his martyrdom.

 

The contrast between the process they used with him; totally transparent public trial versus his death squads in the night. Access to appeals. Access to defense. Ability to speak in his own defense and call witnesses. All things that were routinly denied to Iraqi citizens by their own government under Saddam. By trying him the way they did they clearly demonstrated to their own population and to the world that they were not a savage uncooth band of Arabs, but were human beings worthy of the sacrifice paid by the rest of the world on their behalf. And that even when faced with the worst evil their nation had ever known, Saddam, they would handle things themselves with dignity and civility.

 

Someone made the point that much of the Iraqi population still fears that he will someday return to power. The only way to grant closure from the era of Saddam for these people is with his public execution. If you want to call this barbaric you can. But I am willing to bet that his eventual public execution will bring far more healing to the region than it will hurt.

 

Bill

[Michaelangelica]

The contrast between the process they used with him; totally transparent public trial versus his death squads in the night. Access to appeals. Access to defense. Ability to speak in his own defense and call witnesses. All things that were routinly denied to Iraqi citizens by their own government under Saddam. By trying him the way they did they clearly demonstrated to their own population and to the world that they were not a savage uncooth band of Arabs, but were human beings worthy of the sacrifice paid by the rest of the world on their behalf. And that even when faced with the worst evil their nation had ever known, Saddam, they would handle things themselves with dignity and civility.

 

Sounds like a policy the United States could learn from with David Hicks.

http://www.amnesty.org.au/Act_now/action_centre/hrs/email_the_pm

and then clearly demonstrate to their own population and to the world that they were not a savage uncooth band of Arabs.

[Buffy]

AP is reporting that Tony Blair is against executing Saddam. Its apparently based though just on the fact that the UK doesn't have capital punishment and doesn't support it being done to anyone...

 

Consistency is the hobgobblin,

Buffy

[C1ay]

They see the Iraqi court as an American instrument in any case, so they won't see Saddam as sentenced to death by fellow Iraqis.

The fact is he was tried and judged by fellow Iraqis, even though he had some Americans on his defense team, and his appeal will be heard by fellow Iraqis. No matter how I feel about it I think it is more important that the Iraqis get what they want out of it. Now that we have given them back their sovereignty I do not feel it is my place to second guess what they do with it. I am satisfied that the Iraqi court is doing what it thinks it needs to do for Iraq.

[TheBigDog]

Sounds like a policy the United States could learn from with David Hicks.

http://www.amnesty.org.au/Act_now/action_centre/hrs/email_the_pm

and then clearly demonstrate to their own population and to the world that they were not a savage uncooth band of Arabs.

The US has been steadily processing people out of Gitmo, as you are well aware. And the US has been working on the legal framework for trying people at Gitmo, as you are well aware. Why don't you bring your comments to a thread where they belong.

 

Bill

[CraigD]

And the US has been working on the legal framework for trying people at Gitmo …

This “framework”, however, fails to afford the minimum legal due process rights required by the US constitution, and can be applied to people on US soil. It’s therefore unconstitutional.

 

There is a precedent for such failures by the US government to uphold the Constitution. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War in 4/27/1861. His action was overturned by the Supreme Court’s 1866 Ex Parte Milligan decision. I’m unaware of any cogent argument against this decision applying to the 11/13/2001 suspension of habeas corpus by G.W.Bush.