Saddam Husseins Hanging. Your Opinion?

[IMAMONKEY!]

Right, so if we could get rid of those pesky courts we could kill the annoying more quickly.

 

Fantastic idea. :)

 

TFS

 

Funny.

 

I'm sorry I didnt state my opinion to clearly. Here it is:

 

1. I think the death penalty is cheaper.

2. I think the death penalty is not as ethical as life in prison.

3. Given the situation that I knew the person recieving the death penalty would kill 10,000 more people if he wasnt killed I would choose the death penalty. By letting him go you yourself are possibly commiting future mass-murder and placing the public in danger.

4. As it stands you will not know that ahead of time so that scenario is purely hypothetical. Thus we have to base this on the crimes he commited in the past. The only reason someone should recieve the death penalty (once again, my opinion) is if they kill someone or several people and *DO NOT SHOW ANY SINCERE REMORSE* People who kill others for pleasure are better off dead. I bet you can imagine what they'll do when they get bored. :doh:

 

Now my reasoning for #1 is this: Yes court costs may be insanely high for a death penalty trial, however even if said costs reached up into say 5,000,000 dollars (which is stretching it if you ask me), how much does it cost to feed, clothe, house, and entertain a man WHILE paying several men a good salary to watch him like a hawk for his entire life? I would think a lot more than 5,000,000. And if that's not enough I would also like to point out that additional court fees are added to life in prison trials later on when that mass-murder could be granted parole, I talked to my Uncle's friend who has a degree in law and works in courts daily. He pointed that out to me when we were discussing this.

 

 

These are my opinions based upon the information I have seen. Here is the final one.

 

Saddam killed many people. He did NOT show remorse originally for those killings. He commited several acts of hostility towards minorities, political opponents, and other countries. Maybe it's because I'm American but hanging seems a little archaic to me, however I do believe he deserved what he got.

[InfiniteNow]

He was born of parents just as all of us. Despite our perceptions of him, he was still a human being, and people did (dare I say) love him.

 

He (and many other highly visible individuals) only serve as a target for our own inward angers and hatreds. We need a place to vent our rage when it has consumed us, and this is how it comes out.

 

You are no better than the one you hate when you speak and think those things which you hate them for.

 

Yes, we are so much different than him.

 

Please don't enlarge this file if you don't want to see what execution looks like:

[ATTACH]909[/ATTACH]

 

Now that passions have calmed and softened, are we better off as a planet as a result of this action?

[sanctus]

No, as it was previsible and i stated in my post on the first page of this thread...why is this not surprising to me and i bet for others it is very surprisning?

[IMAMONKEY!]

Now that passions have calmed and softened, are we better off as a planet as a result of this action?

 

of saddam's hanging? Yes. I think we are. The less zealots* in the world the better.

 

*by zealots I mean the crazy ones denouncing everyone else's right to live. In other words I mean by the word zealot those few people in the Middle East encouraging their subjects to kill others and themselves (a heinous act for sure) to get to paradise.

 

Idiots... plain and simple. I can't believe anyone would think it is moral to strap a bomb to yourself and then try and go blow up the bearers of peace.

[Boerseun]

*by zealots I mean the crazy ones denouncing everyone else's right to live.

As opposed to those bright shiny beacons of enlightenment and democracy who kills them, of course.

In other words I mean by the word zealot those few people in the Middle East encouraging their subjects to kill others and themselves (a heinous act for sure) to get to paradise.

Unfortunately for geographical precision, those kinda guys aren't limited or bound by the borders of the Middle East. Craziness is all over, and spans across political and religious borders. A nut is a nut. And a fundamentalist nut is a fundamentalist nut. A gun shoots just as well in the hands of a Muslim nut than it does in a Northern Irish Protestant/Catholic nut. And a matchstick burns just as well in Mohammed Al Kahleed's hands than in David Koresh's. The danger lies in only perceiving the nuttiness in one kind of nut, and ignoring the nuttiness of the rest.

 

In danger of being ostracised by all Americans here, I propose that in the Big Scheme of Things, those idiots in power in the States who want to ban evolution from schools, the incomprehensible idiotic (elected) nutters in the United States of America who want to press for Intelligent Design to be included in the school cirriculum, are ultimately more dangerous and harmful to the United States as a whole than the occasional terrorist bomb that might blow a few civilians to bits. The few civilians that gets blown up is sad, to be sure, but millions upon millions of innocent kids will be denied reason and scientific prowess if those adders you keep to your bosom (the abovementioned elected idiots) aren't seen for the harmful nutters they are.

 

You press for democracy. Democracy have given you those nuts. You might loose scientific freedom because of the democracy you so espouse. Be careful what you wish for, and don't worry about the splinter in your neighbour's eye - your neighbour, of course, being the Middle East, in this parable.

Idiots... plain and simple. I can't believe anyone would think it is moral to strap a bomb to yourself and then try and go blow up the bearers of peace.

Of course its not moral to strap a bomb to yourself and blow yourself, or anybody else, up. But patriotism cuts both ways. And if you intrude on the sovereign soil of a sovereign country, and totally outgun them, what options do you leave them with? In South Africa, at the turn of the 19th century, we had the Second Anglo-Boer war. In that war, around 10,000 fighting Boers were pitted against the might of the British Empire. They imported more than half a million troops from the UK, Australia and New Zealand to come and win the war against these pitiful handful of horse-ridin' pipe-smokin' bible-readin' deeply religious farmers, their only sin that they were trying to protect what was theirs. They have trekked up into empty country that wasn't officially organised into any form of government, and the UK actually accepted their sovereignty in the early 1800's. Until, of course, Gold was discovered in the Witwatersrand. Then the UK wanted some of the action.

 

But, the Boers were effectively outgunned. This made the Boers actually invent guerilla warfare. Guerilla warfare, of course, being known as terrorism if you don't support the cause. And the less than 10,000 Boers kept the 500,000 British troops on their toes for more than three years. The situation is very much comparable to the modern f***up in Iraq. The difference, of course, that the whole of Western Europe supported the Boers, and were disgusted at the British actions against these sovereign countries (the old Transvaal and Free State republics). Was this maybe because the Boers were of the same religion and race (actually being the descendants of the Western European powers?

 

What you currently perceive as nutters in the Middle East, might simply be normal people coming to the fore under pressure, real patriots who are simply outgunned. I fail to see how anybody can effectively fight against aircraft carriers, jets, precision bombs, tanks, laser-guided weapons, cruise missiles, etc. without reverting to guerilla tactics, or terrorism. And the more the US will try to suppress it and force its will onto the world, the more the US will suffer terrorism. There simply is no other way to preserve you and yours in the face of such overwhelming military might. But calling them nutters might be slightly off, those nutters are clever and calculating military planners. They have been keeping the US, the mightiest military country in the world, on its toes for quite a few years, after all, with the only way possible given the circumstances. And all the US will achieve through this is the mass traumatisation of American citizens, the draining of its budget, losing massive respect throughout the world, and increasing the patriotic zeal of normal, average Iraqis by a dangerous order of magnitude.

 

Of course there are Iraqis supporting the US invasion. There was Boers who supported the British invasion in 1899, too. They have, after the war, been ostracised from society as 'hensoppers' (hands-uppers) and 'joiners'. Families have been ostracised from society for generations after, for co-operating with the English. I still remember my grandfather telling me not to date a particular girl because her family were a bunch of 'hensoppers'. And this was in the late 1980's. More than 80 years after the fact. How will Iraq look like in a hundred years, where memories of injustice might be more persistent than what we in the West might be accustomed to? They still throw the injustice of the Crusades against the West. That's something to ponder over...

 

But coming back to the topic at hand, no, I don't believe hanging Saddam achieved anything, no less for not being able to answer to the many other attrocities he was guilty/accused of.

[TheBigDog]

Boer, there is a distinction between terrorism and guerrilla warfare. Guerrilla warfare is aimed at military targets. I do not see attacks on US troops in Iraq to be terrorism (as it is often characterized), even very sneaky and unconventional attacks. The attacks on civilian populations, suicide bombings in mosques, marketplaces, schools, etc. are pure terrorism.

 

I could sympathize with an enemy who was fighting the powers that are trying to control them with force. I cannot understand the wholesale slaughter of innocents to wear out your enemies political support. Thousands of Iraqi people die at the hands of terrorists; far more than from the combined coalition forces. The US is blamed for these deaths through some twisted logic that those doing the killing have no other recourse, and are therefore sympathetic characters.

 

The US continues to pour money into the region to rebuild. These are peaceful actions aimed at providing the basics of community life. The terrorists continue to stymie these actions, slowing and destroying construction to perpetuate fear, and bleed American political support for our continued involvement in the area. Who suffers for this action? Who suffers when electricity is sabotaged, and market places are bombed, and sewers are blocked and destroyed, and water systems are attacked? The terrorists there are not fighting for the Iraqi people. They are causing the continued suffering of the Iraqi people while demonizing the Americans as the root cause of all evil.

 

Had Saddam simply allowed unfettered inspections, how might this have been different? Had a group of US Senators and the Presidents of France and Russia not promised Saddam that a US invasion would never happen, would he have taken an offer of asylum from the UAE and peacefully stepped down from power without an invasion? What would have gotten him to stop offering $10,000 to $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers, his official reaction to the US request to stop supporting terrorism. If the world had realized how serious the US was about fighting terrorism, and instead of calling the demands for Saddam to step down or face forced removal as unreasonable, then perhaps other nations (read Iran and North Korea) would not be so emboldened as they are today to go down paths of Nuclear buildup since the US has spent what momentum it had, and now spear rattling officially has no effect.

 

And lets face it, spear rattling in a unified voice from the whole world is all it should have taken to isolate and control terrorism. It is ruined by a few opportunists who see it as an opportunity to appear powerful, f**k the effect it has on the rest of the world.

 

Bill

[Boerseun]

Had Saddam simply allowed unfettered inspections, how might this have been different?

Hey, Bill - not gonna pick a fight with you, but that's exactly what Saddam did. George Bush simply didn't believe Hans Blix who said there was nothing there. So they invaded, and found nothing. Er....

[TheBigDog]

Hey, Bill - not gonna pick a fight with you, but that's exactly what Saddam did. George Bush simply didn't believe Hans Blix who said there was nothing there. So they invaded, and found nothing. Er....

That's the trouble today, nobody likes fighting anymore.

 

*Directed to the general public*

 

Hans was saying that there were no weapons, but he was not saying that the Iraqi government was complying. In fact they were threatening to use the weapons they did not have up to and during the invasion. Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) weapons were not found in great stockpiles as was expected, but they were indeed found. Over 500 chemical artillery shells have been discovered in scattered areas. Several long range missiles were fired that violated the weapons ban on Iraq.

 

A few months ago there was a little to-do about the state department having documents posted online which gave secret details of nuclear weapons construction. As soon as this went public they were taken down. You know were they were? They were documents seized from Iraq that the Congress had forced the administration to make public before they were inspected (the inspection was taking too long). Funny, I thought they didn't have a nuclear program...

 

It was also not President Bush alone who believed there were weapons of mass destruction as is often implied. All of the nations surrounding Iraq insisted that they were there. And I would bet good money that Saddam believed he had them.

 

Bill

[InfiniteNow]

Iraq - Global Policy Forum

The United States invaded Iraq in alliance with Britain on March 20, 2003, winning a quick military victory and ousting the government of Saddam Hussein. Though the US and the UK claimed they acted in accordance with international law, an overwhelming majority of the world’s governments and people thought otherwise. Since then, the US-UK occupation has encountered increasing armed resistance in Iraq, and support for the war and occupation has steadily declined in the invading countries. US-UK claims about Iraqi weapons threats and terror links have proven false, and the costs of the operation have risen. This section looks at many aspects of the conflict in Iraq, such as the background to the war, including the thirteen years of sanctions and the importance of Iraq’s huge oil resources. It also examines the issues that have emerged since the invasion, such as the resistance to the occupation, the disputes surrounding a post-war government, and the task of reconstruction.

 

Justifications for War: WMDs and Other Issues - Global Policy Forum - UN Security Council

The US and UK government fabricated information to justify their military strike on Iraq. US congressional and UK parliamentary investigations look into the false information circulated by the Bush and Blair governments, especially concerning weapons of mass destruction. This section covers the controversies and changing reasons put forward in Washington and London to justify the war.

 

International Law Aspects of the Iraq War and Occupation - Security Council - Global Policy Forum

Iraq and the Laws of War: US as Belligerent Occupant - UN Security Council - Global Policy Forum

 

Seriously, Bill... doesn't it ever get boring being so consistenly wrong on these major issues. :Guns:

[TheBigDog]

Your links are so disturbingly one sided and blind that I cannot believe you would seriously use them as credible resources. Do you wear a counterweight to keep you from falling over to your left?

 

If I had never heard about this topic before, and all I had as reference were the links you supplied, it would lead me to believe that there is no such thing as terrorism in this world, that all terrorist activities are the fabrication of the US government to justify the war. Do you really believe that to be the case?

 

Bill

[InfiniteNow]

Your links are so disturbingly one sided and blind that I cannot believe you would seriously use them as credible resources. Do you wear a counterweight to keep you from falling over to your left?

No... I listen to the Vice President. Surely you're not suggesting he is a nutbag leftwinger?

 

Cheney: Iraq war right, WMD or not - Meet the Press, online at MSNBC - MSNBC.com

In the build-up to the U.S. invasion in 2003, Bush and other administration leaders argued that Saddam should be removed from power because he had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was actively seeking to build a nuclear weapon.

 

Subsequent investigations concluded that he did not have such weapons, and in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Cheney acknowledged that, “clearly, the intelligence that said he did was wrong.”

 

Please don't use ad hominem arguments on me Bill. I hope you respect me more than that.

[TheBigDog]

No... I listen to the Vice President. Surely you're not suggesting he is a nutbag leftwinger? Please don't use ad hominem arguments on me Bill. I hope you respect me more than that.

The Vice President hardly agrees with the sites you posted. There is a difference between acting on intelligence that later proves to be bad (VP statement) and claims from your cited sites such as...

The US and UK government fabricated information to justify their military strike on Iraq. US congressional and UK parliamentary investigations look into the false information circulated by the Bush and Blair governments, especially concerning weapons of mass destruction. This section covers the controversies and changing reasons put forward in Washington and London to justify the war.

Respect but verify...

 

Bill

[Boerseun]

Crikey!

 

You want to tell me that the War in Iraq is not resource-based?

 

You want to tell me that in a world full of nuclear-wannabes and human rights abusers, including North Korea, Zimbabwe, etc., the US decides to invade Iraq because of WMDs? In the process liberating the only country on the long list of transgressors that *happened* to be in an oil-rich region? That must surely be accidental, right?

 

The War in Iraq is about oil.

Hussein was hanged as soon as possible to eliminate any future embarrasments that might come to the fore in court.

That's just wrong.

 

Execution in any form is dispiccable, barbaric and vile. If you attempt to employ the bible in support of this barbaric practice, in saying an 'eye for an eye', also keep in mind that the bible encourages (and actually demands) forgiveness, regardless of the individual's sins.

[IMAMONKEY!]

Crikey!

 

You want to tell me that the War in Iraq is not resource-based? :eek2:

 

You want to tell me that in a world full of nuclear-wannabes and human rights abusers, including North Korea, Zimbabwe, etc., the US decides to invade Iraq because of WMDs? In the process liberating the only country on the long list of transgressors that *happened* to be in an oil-rich region? That must surely be accidental, right?

 

The War in Iraq is about oil.

Hussein was hanged as soon as possible to eliminate any future embarrasments that might come to the fore in court.

That's just wrong.

 

Execution in any form is dispiccable, barbaric and vile. If you attempt to employ the bible in support of this barbaric practice, in saying an 'eye for an eye', also keep in mind that the bible encourages (and actually demands) forgiveness, regardless of the individual's sins.

 

I feel a rant coming on... :D

 

You are right in that it is about oil... but I think it's useless. We're not going to get any of it.

 

I'm reading a book right now and so I would like to use it as a source in my rant. This is the VERY FIRST TIME I have ever used a source for a post on Hypography! :eek2:

 

The book was published in 1945, although I believe was written near the end of World War II by Leslie D. Weatherhead (funny name :hihi:)

 

"Thou Shalt Love Thine Enemy"

 

That sounds a very strange text to announce, and seems a formidable subject to discuss during wartime. You might even think it is a dangerous subject and one likely to undermine the morale of our people. It might be easier conventionally to forget that Jesus ever said those words. I should not at all be surprised if someone felt immediately cynical, saying in his heart, "Do you expect us to love the Gestapo? Are you seriously asking us to love those who run concentration camps, persecute the Jews, lock up little children in filthy railway cars and send them to unknown destinations, tearing them away from their parents? Have you forgotten already the Nazi atrocities, the inhuman brutality, and Authentic records of bestiality? [relates to Saddam's actions] The foul deeds of our enemies are proved beyond possibility of doubt, and you have the cheek to stand there in that safe pulpit and tell us to love our enemies..."

 

[He goes on to explain two reasons why we should not hate our enemies nor fight with hate. He then explains how "thou shalt love" is not what it appears to be]

 

...An emotion is not sufficiently within the control of the will. Therefore it would be nonsense to say to anybody, "Thou shalt love," if we were asking him to produce that warm emotion which generally goes by that name. "Thou shalt love" in the New Testament means [rather], "Thou shalt adopt a sustained determination to show unbreakable good will [towards]." If you remember, it has been shown that loving your neighbor does not mean liking him, which again is a matter of feeling, not will; nor does it mean blinding oneself to his faults. It does mean acting as if you liked him, for acting is within control of the will.

 

I want to work out the same idea in regard to our new topic: "Thou shalt love thine enemy". It cannot mean liking our enemy, for no one can be expected to like the typical Nazi. Yet I do not want to say that I not only like, but have a deep affection for many friends I made in Germany. They have been silenced by Nazi tyrrany and find no means of expressing themselves, but I am sure that they must hate the evil that has seized the high places of power, and that they still lvoe and worship our Lord Jesus Christ. At the same time no one who holds as precious the values for which we are fighting can possibly like those who have set themselves to destroy them, and who would fain practice a ruthless domination over the rest of ther world.

 

Further no one can possibly blind himself to the enormities that the Nazi regime has brought to literally millions of innocent people. In my view, the Allied governments are quite right in demanding punishment, in demanding that after the war, by legal courts duly constituted, those who are responsible shall be brought to justice. To say, "thou shalt love thine enemy," does not mean letting him off. Such punishment will deal more charitably with the evildoer than the lawless revenge of the Czechs and Poles would mete out to him.

 

[He goes on to explain that loving your enemy means showing good will towards him WITHOUT ignoring his faults/crimes.

 

"But," you will say, "how can you use the word 'love' even in the New Testament sense of showing good will, when night after night you are bombing the enemy?" Well, let's go back to the earlier illustration of the criminal gang. Supposing, we said, that there were in this city a criminal gang, it would be the duty of the state to end its activity, even at the cost of human life. Granted that war is a faulty method of dealing with Inernational criminals [you catch the reference? :hyper:] yet -- and the blame of this lies upon all our hearts -- it is at present the only method of achieving the desired result. I hold, therefore that it is justifiable...

 

...We desire the good of the enemy, though he himself, plus the sin of all the nations, has driven us to terrible mothods of securing this end.

 

The ends justify the means. Saddam was killed because he was our enemy and created new enemies. To show good will to the majority and "love" our enemies (people of Iraq/radicals/whoever else is trying to kill us) we have to sacrifice human life.

 

This isn't really a question of "is it moral to kill a person?". It's a question of "Is it moral to kill a person to save the lives of others?".

 

The answer is obvious. You don't have to be a genius to figure it out. Ask a 5-year old child what you should do to a bully who continues to hurt others and even kill them. The child will simply state you should restrain him. A powerful man like Saddam cannot be restrained mentally (I'd love to see someone chastise him), but he may be restrained physically. As is apparent, jail is not a very secure medium for restraint. He's a radical, powerful, tyrant/warmonger. Jail won't hold him. You know that, I know that, we all know it.

 

So we are left one option. Be it crude or immoral, sacrifices of values must sometimes be made for reaching those values highest to us; namely, the security and protection of human life.

 

You would have to be heartless to not kill someone if you knew releasing them meant he would kill thousands more.:evil: You yourself then are commiting murder, where as the death of the murderer is an act of protecting human life.

 

Morality is wacky, but to be completely honest I find it quite simple. Given the situation there is always an answer preferable to the other.

 

And also in regards to your last paragraph: I would kill Saddam myself given the chance. There are some things in this world we have to accept and one of them is that letting him live will cause pain, suffering, evil, and possibly more death. Let us show good will towards our neighbors/enemies through weeding out those that would not. Simple.

 

And you are right in that the Bible says God will forgive your sins, but that doesn't neccesarily mean we are meant to emulate God. As I recall, we are not God and never shall be anything NEAR God. So how can you justify your statement given that, clearly, God does not intend to have us emulate him.

 

"also keep in mind that the bible encourages (and actually demands) forgiveness, regardless of the individual's sins."

 

Excuse me, did you just say demands? :evil:

 

And regardless of the individual's sins? So if an individual kills thousands, has no remorse for it, and would kill again given the chance, you would have the nerve to stand by and say "well the Bible tells me to forgive and forget"...?

 

I strongly disagree with you there. We can forgive them later on maybe, but not after dealing with the issue at hand. Forgiveness does NOT mean allowance. We do not just allow them to sin. That is where I believe you are wrong. Saddam would kill more given the chance. Just because the Bible says we should forgive him does not mean we should let him live to take more human life and cause more pain, suffering, and sorrow.

 

I'm surprised anyone has the nerve to say we shouldn't have killed him. Given the situation, we had 2 choices, Jail for life (which inevitably would end in him being set free somehow) or death.

 

Good day to you all. I am prepared for the coming backlash to my rant. :mad:

 

IMAMONKEY!

[Boerseun]

He's a radical, powerful, tyrant/warmonger. Jail won't hold him. You know that, I know that, we all know it.

Nope. Make that 'he WAS a radical tyrant'. You see, Saddam used the mechanics of State to execute his evil and murderous plans. Once he was removed as ruler, he did not have access to the Iraqi army, or his presidential Guard. He was a nobody shithead hiding in a hole. With Saddam in jail, I fail to see how he could continue killing people. Even if he escaped jail, he would have been be faced with an Iraq with a democratically elected government, in which he has no say, save for being an historically interesting oddity.

So we are left one option. Be it crude or immoral, sacrifices of values must sometimes be made for reaching those values highest to us; namely, the security and protection of human life.

Oh. Like "Make Love For Virginity".

You would have to be heartless to not kill someone if you knew releasing them meant he would kill thousands more.:D

Apart from the first ten words of this sentence being probably the funniest thing I have ever read on Hypo, I have yet to hear of anybody reliably predicting the future. You just assume he'll kill again, so you kill him, blurring the moral line between you and him. If you have a serial killer who only kills with knives, and you take all his knives away, he's fine in prison. Same with Saddam. He used the Iraqi STATE and MILITARY to conduct his killing. Saddam wasn't a blood- and gore-covered murderer stalking the Baghdad streets at night. He was IN CHARGE of the military, and abused that position through the orders he gave. Deposing him as commander-in-chief of the Iraqi armed forces effectively brought an end to his killing-ability. There's no point in executing him. You will not save ONE SINGLE LIFE through executing Saddam Hussein.

And also in regards to your last paragraph: I would kill Saddam myself given the chance.

Good for you. I can't even kill a chicken.

There are some things in this world we have to accept and one of them is that letting him live will cause pain, suffering, evil, and possibly more death.

Neither you nor anybody else can predict the future. Saddam had NO KILLING ABILITY LEFT after being deposed as Head of State. How would he keep on killing? Is he, in his personal capacity, a hitman, or a sniper, or a knife-wielding stabber? He certainly was an *******, I'll grant you that. But we simply can't go about killing assholes because they're assholes.

Let us show good will towards our neighbors/enemies through weeding out those that would not. Simple.

Showing goodwill through killing people? Showing goodwill is one thing, not supporting bad governments another, totally and completely ignoring sovereignty completely another.

And you are right in that the Bible says God will forgive your sins, but that doesn't neccesarily mean we are meant to emulate God. As I recall, we are not God and never shall be anything NEAR God. So how can you justify your statement given that, clearly, God does not intend to have us emulate him.

Ahem... not being a perfect Christian myself, as a matter of fact, not being a Christian at all, I do recall from my previous religious life a small verse recanted every night by every good and honest Bible-wielding youngster at night, on your knees, fingers steepled to heaven, before bed:

"...and forgive us all our trespasses as we forgive those who tresspass against us."

I have never heard it said that in forgiving others (regardless of the magnitude of their sins) is an act of God-emulation. That's just ridiculous. Forgiveness is the heart and soul of Christianity, which professes itself to be a religion of LOVE. I don't think you completely understand the implications of this.

"also keep in mind that the bible encourages (and actually demands) forgiveness, regardless of the individual's sins."

 

Excuse me, did you just say demands? :hyper:

Yes. Unless, of course, you stick to the Old Testament, which seems is what Bush is doing. Forgiveness is one of the main pillars of New Testament Christianity. Spread the luv, brotha.

And regardless of the individual's sins? So if an individual kills thousands, has no remorse for it, and would kill again given the chance, you would have the nerve to stand by and say "well the Bible tells me to forgive and forget"...?

Actually, yes. Every single soul is redeemable, according to the New Testament. And as far as judgement goes, I think it utterly arrogant for humans to assume they have the right to decide whether a child of God may live or must die. And don't come with that "he was no child of God, he was a Muslim" bullshit. The Christian Bible will see him as a child, albeit it a wayward one. But it is not our place to sentence any of God's creations to death. In doing so, you are intruding in God's realm, and assuming his role. You will get rapped on the knuckles for that, young man.

I'm surprised anyone has the nerve to say we shouldn't have killed him.

I will not bore you with the terrible moral dilemmas interwoven into the crazy situation of so-called civilized countries systematically and calculatingly killing individual human beings. Does a government execute a felon in the heat of the moment? No. Few murders are as coldly planned and efficiently executed as those that the State commit IN MY FU**ING NAME. I want no part of it. It sickens me to the n'th degree. But I will not bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that if you don't understand the moral implications of being a voter in a State that allows this sort of barbarism, you're still blessed with the innocence of youth. And I mean it in the kindest possible way. I actually wish that I was still there, myself.

Given the situation, we had 2 choices, Jail for life (which inevitably would end in him being set free somehow) or death.

Yes. And?

[DougF]

I think it is and should be the business of the sovereign Iraqi people, so it doesn't and shouldn't matter what I think. It is my opinion that Saddam does not deserve to live but that doesn't necessarily translate to someone else deserving to kill him.

 

I agree it's not up to us! nor should it be,

 

BUT... I would keep him in a DEEP DARK HOLE (in very good health I want him to live a very long time) with no outside contact (other than a 24 hour a day Iraq TV that shows him how happy they are without him.)

 

 

:artgallery:

[TheFaithfulStone]

other than a 24 hour a day Iraq TV that shows him how happy they are without him.

 

What channel are you watching?

 

TFS

[oh, wait, it's FOX right?]