Hanging is Too Good…

Posted on November 5, 2006
Filed Under Deep Thought, General, Politics |

Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to hang for crimes agianst humanity (Full story here, from various sources.) Specifically for the killing of 148 people in the town of Dujail after a failed assasination attempt in 1982.
The debate over the verdict will dominate the news worldwide for the next few days at least. The british government has already stated that it is glad that there has been resolution in this case even though it opposes the form that this resolution has taken. While I don’t condone the death penalty in any circumstances I don’t see that the Iraqi’s have much choice. If they keep him alive and imprisoned for the rest of his life there is a risk that he will be used as a rallying cry for all sorts of nasty elements left over from his former government, and frankly Iraq has enough problems without making trouble for itself in the future. We in the west (with some notable exceptions.) have gone beyond such a barbaric means of punishment, which is little more than state sanctioned revenge.
If the situation in Iraq were more stable I would suggest some sort of psychological ‘treatment’ designed to strip a person of their ego and leave them with no doubt as to how small and insignificant they are in the grand scheme of things. To a man of Saddam’s obvious arrogance this would be a far better punishment than death. Hanging lets him off easily, he should be made to face up to his crimes and be made to live out the rest of his life in the knowledge that what he did was unconscionable in the eyes of the world and the people he governed. Unfortuately things being as they are the risk of him regaining some vestige of his power, even from his cell, is too great. Saddam should hang, not because of his crimes, but because his continuing presence in Iraq has the potential to make a bad situation worse.


News Sources:
Reuters
BBC
CNN
Channel 4 (UK)
Guardian Unlimited (UK)

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2 Responses to “Hanging is Too Good…”

  1. no imageCheeseburger Brown (Who am I?) on November 5th, 2006 5:28 pm

    Was I the only one who found it surprising that hanging was even an option? I think in these woosy times we eschewed such direct grizzle in favour of “merciful” ends like lethal injection.

    It’s so mediaeval. I wonder if they’ll be wenches serving mead?

    Love,
    Cheeseburger Brown

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  2. no imagemandrill (Who am I?) on November 5th, 2006 7:03 pm

    Possibly harem girls serving coffee. Mead, being alcoholic would be out of the question and wenches are more a european thing.

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