Saddam Husseins Hanging. Your Opinion?

[paigetheoracle]

C1ay, if it is only the business of the iraqi people then why having gone there in the first place? It is the responsibility of the "invaders" to also form an opinion and think of the consequences of their acts.

And how do you judge that someone doesn't deserve to live? Is there a minimum number of people killed on your conscience that makes you to deserve being killed or not?

But i like your conclusion "that doesn't translate ...".

 

 

I completely agree with Tormod. In addition I'm also against this death penalty because it will make the already not very stable government even more unstable, as it gives a reason more to all the saddam-followers to not accept the government and fight it. Ergo killing is contraproductive for democracy and hence the white house, which proudly says "we brought democracy to Iraq", should also be against...but as often is the case they don't seem to see the things which seem obvious to me. Other people other ways of thinking.

 

I can add very little to this except to say I agree and that it has been done to justify Americas stance on the invasion 'He was evil and must die!' as opposed to being just like that idiot GW, who didn't know what he was doing and wouldn't have invaded Iraq if he had (Two stupid men who never fooled any of their populace, with anything between their ears but wouldn't realize that because neither Sad, damn - who sane? or GeeWhiz Bush haven't anything between theirs). It's Grand Guignol theatre (of the absurd) but what can we do but shake our heads in dismay at such sick and childish antics ('Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they do' [even if we do]).

 

Happy New Year?:confused:

[Rebiu]

What is wrong with everybody? This moral relativism is a virus that seems to be corrupting our society to the core.

All morality is relative!

 

1) The death penalty is bad.

State sponsored terror I mean revenge is bad.

 

2) Brutally murdering hundreds of thousands of your own people and torchering millions including executions infront of family memebers, deliberate mutilation, and the use of chemical weapons against entire towns is far far worse.

How will Saddams execution stop this? In fact it has cause more of what you speak.

 

There can be no comparison between these two except to conclude that we are much better in every way that Saddam was even with the death penalty.

It is not about comparison. The execution of Saddam makes nothing better and everything worse.

[Zythryn]

I am curious, to those that hold the position that killing is always to be avoided:

If you had a prisoner in prison who had commited 1000 murders and you knew for a fact that they would kill another 10000 people in the future unless they were killed. Would you kill them.

 

I realize this is purely a philisophical question as in real life you can never know with certainty what will happen in the future.

[InfiniteNow]

I realize this is purely a philisophical question as in real life you can never know with certainty what will happen in the future.

While the thought to kill them would likely cross my mind, I hope that if I were presented with such a circumstance I would be wise/fortunate enough to arrive at an alternative approach.

[IDMclean]

If you had a prisoner in prison who had commited 1000 murders and you knew for a fact that they would kill another 10000 people in the future unless they were killed. Would you kill them.

Mood: :eek: :smart: :) :umno:

 

That is a irrelevant question, Zythryn, I would think.

 

If you knew for certain he would do anything, you would know for certain that you couldn't stop him. For all intents and purposes the future would be decided for you, and so your actions in it all would do nothing, by your own conjecture.

 

Unless you are likewise asking:

If you knew that a person who had commited 1000 murders and would commit 10000 murders in the future, but also knew you could stop him, what would you do?

 

Otherwise, what you have commited in my observation, Zythryn, is the fallacy of many questions. You presuppose the only way to stop him is to kill him.

 

If such is the case, then you have the answer to your own question, so why ask us? :Clown:

[TheFaithfulStone]

Well, actually, the question is whether it would be ethical to kill someone to prevent the deaths (or suffering) of others.

 

That's not an entirely irrelevant question because it gets to the heart of whether it's ever okay to kill other people.

 

The facts clearly show the following things:

 

1) The death penalty is not cheaper.

2) The death penalty is not an effective deterrent to the general population.

 

Why do we punish criminals? Is it to "rehabilite" them? Evidence suggests otherwise to me, otherwise we wouldn't store them with a bunch of other criminals. In a system which rehabilitates:

 

3) The death penalty cannot function. You cannot rehabilitate the dead.

 

Given this, the only explanation that I can arrive at for the death penalty is that it is revenge - not so pure, but pretty simple.

 

Is that okay?

 

TFS

[Boerseun]

Given this, the only explanation that I can arrive at for the death penalty is that it is revenge - not so pure, but pretty simple.

I seem to remember a study done a while ago which made the finding that the majority of killings are crimes of passion. Something like 90%, if memory serves. Sounds a bit high, but that's why I remember it. I'll look for some references.

 

Now, I'm not coming to the defence of any specific killer, but you can somehow 'sympathise' with a murderer who just lost control of himself and went berserk, killing a few people around him. That might be the reptile brain taking over, who knows. The one moment the guy walked in on his wife shagging his best friend, the next moment he stands there with a bloody knife in his hand and two corpses on the bed. He has no recollection of what happened. It doesn't make it right in any way, but you can ask whether this guy is a killer, or a victim of evolution which parked a piece of reptile slap bang in the middle of his cranium.

 

Now Saddam clearly did not fall in that category. All his actions were clearly calculated and coolly executed, using the entire Iraqi State as his weapon of choice. When killings move from the realm of 'crimes of passion' which might be regulated by the reptilian brain core, to calculated killings mediated by the cerebral cortex, it becomes much, much worse. Seeing as the killer is completely mentally capable and able, you'd think his cerebral cortex would analyse what is being done and put a stop to it. When it doesn't, as in the case of Saddam, that tells you something of the humanity and respect for life this guy has - his full mental faculties analysed the situation and found nothing wrong in the killings.

 

But what does tell us about governments applying capital punishment? A government goes through the effort of a trial, with the prosecutors trying their best to nail the guy, and the defense team trying their best to defend the guy. That's all dandy. But then the judge finds against the defendent, and sentences him to death. Justice was served. Fine. But this sets in motion machinery intended to end a human being's life. And everybody sits around and finds nothing wrong with the concept. When a State kills a prisoner sentenced to death, a State cannot claim it was a Crime of Passion. It's a coolly, clearly calculated effort intended to end another human's life. And that, to me, is much, much worse, and uncivilized to the extreme.

[Jay-qu]

I only saw this poll now after his hanging and I while I am still undecided on the matter, I am generally against the death penalty. I think it is an easy way out in a sense. But keeping someone like this man alive could be potentially dangerous for long periods of time, perhaps if the hanging wasnt so swift a 'rescue' mission of sorts may have been attempted.

[Tormod]

While we can make all kinds of hypothetical situations where the death penalty may seem the only solution, I think the real challenge is to find alternatives. If deterence is the only thing the death penalty achieves, and if it fails at that, then finding another way to punish the worst offenders must surely be a more fruitful venture than just killing them.

[C1ay]

Why are we rehashing the death-penalty-in-general in the Saddam Hanging thread when we already have a capital punishment thread?

[Eclogite]

I gave up after working through the first five or six pages of this thread, so if this comment repeats something said at a later stage, mea culpa.

 

Several, on both sides of the issue, have spoken of the Iraqui people. This completely ignores the fact that there are no Iraqui people. There are Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis. Two of these three groups view Hussein's execution as well deserved and cause for jubilation. The third group consider it the act of a cowardly aggressor (the US led coalition), cheap revenge, and unacceptable morally, or politically.

 

On that basis, all this decision by the Iraqui people (:) )has done is too deepen the divide and make the region more unstable.

 

My DNA tells me that killing people is wrong. Period. Killing Hussein was doubly wrong, since it was politically inept.

[Buffy]

A variation of Zythryn's question, but much more likely and concrete has shown up on several right- and left-wing blogs, with this one from Cliff May at the National Observer (very far to the right...):

Imagine that Saddam had not been executed. Imagine that he had been sentenced to life in prison.

 

Now imagine that a group of pro-Saddam terrorists seizes an elementary school. They say they will kill all the students and teachers if Saddam is not released within 24 hours.

 

Should Saddam then be released? Or should several dozen innocent children and their teachers be killed?

 

Speculation is rampant (this one from Josh Marshall on the left) that this is why Maliki rushed the execution over the supposed objections of the US....

 

Morality is not simple,

Buffy

[infamous]

Why are we rehashing the death-penalty-in-general in the Saddam Hanging thread when we already have a capital punishment thread?

 

Truly....................Just because it's Saddam's case should make little or no difference. Even so..........Not too long ago, I would have been an advocate for the death penalty under certain extreme conditions. As time has passed, I've become more and more uncomfortable with the notion. Presently, I must confess that I believe capitol punishment to be unreasonable punishment even for one as despicable as Saddam Hussein. Am I glad to see him gone? Absolutely, but I didn't approve of the method.........................Infy

[Freddy]

I viewed the cell phone video of the execution and was surprised at what I thought was either loud praying or reading of the charges. Little did I know that in reality they were the screams of Saddam's enemies. No wonder the official Iraqi video cut out before this upsetting behavior began. Now the government is investigating how this was allowed to take place.

[Tormod]

Indeed. I think the whole episode shows how much this execution was pure and simple revenge, and utter barbarism.

 

Iraq probes Hussein execution - CNN.com

[LJP07]

Also, Bush keeping a weapon belonging to Saddam isn't exactly right and he can show off that, t must show that Bush's happiness is actually due to revenge. What's the world coming to when you see acts committed like this? When does Bush Administration end, the sooner the better, maybe the new president will also withdraw from Iraq, thought I heard that in the news.

[gribbon]

Personally, I find it ridiculous that certain people inssit that this man should not have been hanged because he has not had an entirely fair trial. Ideally, he would have such a trial, but the fact that he has murdered countless people is an irrefutable fact. Thta