wednes | Saddam H

You know what?

I don't particularly want to see a human being get hanged on the internet.
If I did, I'd watch Law & Order SVU. It's on constantly.

Like everyone else I watch on Tv all the time, I almost feel like I know the ruthless dictator they are about to murder to get back at him for being a bad man. For that reason alone, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that he's about to die and that people are ranting about how great it is that we "took him down." Nevermind the fact that we're the ones who built him up to begin with.

Oddly enough, I always thought I'd be into the idea of televised execution. I'm just ghoulish that way. But when I hear news outlets talk about "tasteful footage" of a man being murdered, it sort of highlights how perverse it is. Photographic evidence isn't neccesary for the news itself. In the good old days, footage of clowns outside the prison cheering, drinking, and holding signs was news enough. Ding Dong, the bad man is dead.

And yes, he's a very, VERY bad man. So what? He's probably also mentally ill.
Are we just going to go around killing all the "bad men." Do we really think that's okay? Are we willing to hand over our own president for the "kill the bad men" initiative? Why aren't we killing Kim Jong Il and the cats in Red China or even some major Columbian Drug Lords who go around killing cops like a kid burning ants with a magnifying glass?

I don't have a snappy answer to my own sarcastic question.
I really don't know.

But as much as I love horror, I can't get behind this whole celebration of a murder.
Turns out, I only like pretend murder after all...

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For all my endless revenge fantasies, I am not comfortable with the death penalty. Perhaps I would feel differently if someone crimed myself or someone I care about. I have friends who are in favor of capital punishment, and since my opposition to it often seems to hinge on the risk of executing someone wrongly convicted, not long ago one of them brought up Saddam. "Well what about Saddam Hussein? It's not like there's any chance he's innocent. How could you care if he was executed?"

...yeah I guess you're right...

but now that it is coming down to it still does not feel right to me. I can't explain. I don't want to kill people.

Yeah...that's the long and short of it. I just don't think we have the right.

this sentence, from a CNN article about the impending execution, bothers me:

Haddad wouldn't disclose the location of the execution and said it won't be broadcast live on TV because of human rights issues.

somehow televising it live is the human rights issue?...why isn't the act of execution itself the human rights issue?...

*shudder* Yikes.

Besides, it's not like the internet doesn't have the footage...probably right now.

I agree with you...and that's odd coming from a news guy. I don't think it should be shown by the news.

I dont' think it's odd that a news guy would have some discretion. Lots of them used to have it.

Its about the only thing left that will prove that Bush isn't somehow completely impotent.

I know but...

a. I'm not fooled.
b. Murder is still wrong
c. I thought he was all into the 10 Commandments?
d. Saddam is the least of our problems.

Tryin to catch up my LJ readin'.

You know, I feel pretty much the same way you do.

i know. i just heard the headlines and it made me sick to my stomach. the only peace i get out of it (if any) is that of the people who have lost family members to his orders of execution.

i don't know... it's all so barbaric.

Yeah...

I just wish we had some say in things like this.

But but.. I'm mentally ill.. and I can't find anyone to kill me. How fair is that?
uhg.

You're preachin' to the crazy choir, baby!

Okay. I'm a cynical personin almost every respect. But I still believe that there is a core of humanity in everyone, no matter how bad or even atrocious the things he or she may have done. And I'll never believe that I or anyone else has the right to snuff that out.

Too true.

This is more like a political assasination anyway.

Part of the problem with the whole Saddam execution is that he was charged by tribunal for the most part--and operating on the basis of trial by jury of peers--no jury made of Saddam's peers (mostly sunni Muslims) would have convicted him.

Besides, while it's extreme what he did to that village... I'm surprised no one even tried the self-defense plea on that. I mean, to use a local example... what would happen if the whole town of Sewickley were involved in the assassination of a U.S. president (and for you feds reading this, this is a philosophical question... damn perverts)...

As for the Kurds... I don't see us bombing our beloved friends from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire in Turkey. Who from what I've read treat the Kurds about as nicely as Saddam did--and would still be doing so, if the US hadn't forced them into a slight policy change.

What they should have done with Saddam's trial, is sentence him to life imprisonment like he's done for so many others... although who's to say he wasn't entirely justified in quite a few of those circumstances.

People invariably want what others have and when one group uses force to try and rest power from another, then the group that's resisting will of course use force to defend their power. And that includes wiping out 183 men and boys in a village, as anyone in the revenge business will tell you... revenge is passed from father to son. Not that women can't get revenge--but they have no standing in Islamic society, so it seems--so it's a strictly male thing. Like how male lions will kill the cubs of the preceding head of the pride when they take over a pride.

And a life sentence for Saddam would also remove any martyrdom that he or his followers would seek to justify the intensification of violence currently going on in Bagdad.

If we can't be equally fair in stopping human rights abuses let alone spreading democracy evenly (eyes US, Russia, and China beadily) then we should get out of this whole 'spread democracy' kick we've been on since after the Civil War.

Very well stated.

Even if our government hadn't armed the guy in the first place, I'd still be appalled by this.

*nods*

I hear ya.

Saddam H

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Heh...

Re: Heh...

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