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« BSG Blogging: Torn, Part I | Main | Having it Both Ways » November 05, 2006Hussein's FateI have mixed feelings on the announcement that Saddam Hussein has (surprise) received the death penalty for his crimes in ordering the deaths of 148 people from the village of Dujail in 1982. On the one hand, it's hard to imagine there's anyone more deserving of death than Hussein, whose crimes are pretty impressive for a penny-ante tyrant. And eliminating him does at least remove the possibility of his somehow returning to power, something that seems to be an occasional hazard of still-living deposed tyrants. But...there's always a but. I'm not a fan of the death penalty. I realize that all governments are based on a foundation of force, but my political beliefs are predicated on the importance of limiting the scope of that violence. Giving the state the power to kill people who can pose no threat gives it far too much power for my personal comfort level. I'll grant that the odds are vanishingly small that Hussein is innocent of his crimes, but that is not often the case, and let's not pretend that there was any chance of any verdict in Hussein's trial but guilty. It was a show trial, a veneer constructed to make it look less barbaric, but it's really little different than us having simply strung him up when we found him. It's hard to imagine that killing Hussein will really accomplish anything, other than making a killer out of whoever is tasked to carry out his execution. I won't mourn Hussein when he goes to the gallows. The world will be a better place without him in it. But I distrust any government that arrogates the power to make that kind of decision to itself, and I doubt this will do a single thing to improve conditions in Iraq. Shiites and Kurds may rejoice, but the Sunnis will see this as a reminder of how their power has been curtailed, and the sectarian violence will continue. In a country desperate for some way of pulling its citizens together, this sentence will only further separate them from one another. That is no victory. Posted at November 5, 2006 01:37 PM
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