PeterDavid.net

PAD,
why are you oppsed to Capital punishment? this man killed thousands of people, sureley he deserves death.

if a person killed and tortured one of your children or your wife, would want that person executed and pay for the crime?

Joe V.

sorry, it should have read

"wouldn't you want".

Joe V.

I don't mind this. While I know there are sometimes errors with capital punishment, there is no doubt about the artocities that he did (unless it's like the end of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and a Hussein double was executed while the main man pretends to be his own double.)

As for Hussein as a martyr, I don't think so. He was such a notorious secularist that Bin Laden refused to work with him, and Hussein was caught hiding in a hole, not going down in a blaze of glory. Martyrs are willing to die for their cause (and somteimes hope to); Hussein tried to sneak away.

I wasn't too cheerful about the news either. Something about taking pleasure in the demise of another human being... not really my thing. I mean, what's the point of killing him? He was caught!

And now he's free. Oh well.

This has been very peculiar for me watching the lead up to all of this.

I've never been die-hard anti-death penalty. I can envisage many situations where I think it is justified to kill a person. But I do remember being impressed with Illinois governor George Ryan's decision to commute the sentences of everyone on death row, saying "I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death", effectively that he's not God and therefore is not qualified to make decisions on who should live and who should die.

That impressed me because here it was coming from someone who had previously supported the death penalty, and during the course of carrying it out came to an epiphany that changed his perspective. And his reasoning behind it, chiefly that the death penalty is fundamentally wrong because A) Rich defendants have a better chance at saving their lives with fancy lawyers and B) Even the chance that you could get it wrong, and death isn't something you can take back.

So that's the point where I began to think, okay, maybe whatever we get from this isn't worth the potential moral cost to ourselves.

Today kind of solidified that feeling, not because of who the defendant was, but because of the surrounding circumstances. We see killing going on there every day. It's not stopping. Where's the perspective on this? I see the media treating this as one more celebrity event. I think that strips us of our humanity; let's put aside Saddam who one can easily understand dismissing; this kind of circus dehumanizes the Iraqi people, the media, and us, the viewers. It's not something that should be in any way entertainment or a spectator sport, and yet that's what it's been from the start; all the commentary about why this was necessary has been about satisfying the masses, perhaps not just in Iraq, but also here, so we don't feel like all our soldiers died for nothing. That just doesn't sit right with me, and makes me feel more certain that this is the wrong course, not just in this particular case, but the wrong way for us as human beings. It's dragging us backward. I want us to get better, so we can one day look back at today the way we now look back at the justice and morality of the Dark Ages.

I couldn't agree more. This is not a good thing.

"if a person killed and tortured one of your children or your wife, would want that person executed and pay for the crime?"

No, because I don't think the law should be about personal vengeance.

Years ago, my dad explained it to me thusly:

If taking the life of another person is truly the most heinous crime one can commit - and I think many people agree that it is - then is it ever justifiable for the state to do just that?

Granted, it's an open-ended question, but my answer is no. An injustice (or even thousands) cannot be rectified by another injustice. And this doesn't even go into issues like executing innocent people, which I think is safe to say is an unrelated topic to Hussein.

I definitely wouldn't say taking the life of another person is the worst crime someone can commit; torture, slavery, etc are all worse I think.

As far as a vengeance... this is another area where I am not 100% anti-death penalty. Let's say one of Saddam's victim's relatives had, at any point, shot him. Should that person be prosecuted? Traditional law says yes, my gut says no. On some level, I think there is a moral right to seek vengeance for certain crimes, even if the law says otherwise.

But a big media/government-promoted exhibition like this is something else entirely.

I was surprised by how much it affected me. I am 100% opposed to the death penalty, but I didnt think the death of a man like Saddam would bother me that much. It has 'though, and I suppose thats a good thing

I'm actually in favor of the death penalty. It's under-utilized here in the States. I fully believe that all persons convicted of rape should be quickly and mercifully put to death. Recidivism for sex crimes is all too common. Locking them these predators for life is a cruel waste of resources better spent on educating our children and providing healthcare for the poor.

But Saddam Hussein?

Like you, Peter, I don't see how this helps Iraq. to quote Robert Deniro, "I see bad t'ings."

Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net

I just want to know if they played any music when the witnesses were supposedly dancing around the body.
Someone queue Men Without Hats!

I can't see why any rational person would be against the death penalty. It's the only thing that has been proven 100% effective in preventing repeat offenses.

What are you going to do, put them in prison for life? I refer you to the case of the Texas Seven, where men that were in prison for life managed to escape and murder a policeman on Christmas Eve.

Had they been put to death, they wouldn't have been able to escape and kill again.

Locking them these predators for life is a cruel waste of resources better spent on educating our children and providing healthcare for the poor.

15 years ago, the reported cost to execute a convict was $9 million. The annual cost to jail him was less than $30,000. A murderer jailed at 20 would have to live to 80 for the death penalty to be cost effective. Citing cost as a merit of the death penalty is riculous.

This is a terrific thing because:

1. All his victims will now come back to life.

2. We won't have to spend the next few decades listening to all his tired stories about his warm relationship and "understandings" with Ronald Reagan, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Jim Baker, and Bush Senior.

Way to bring civilization to the heathen, Dubya!

Also, "atrocities" are acts committed during war.
"Artocities" are committed by Rob Liefeld.

My guess?

BushCo. will use the death of Hussein as proof of Iraqi independance at work and use it as an excuse to strategically disengage from Iraq.

I can't see why any rational person would be against the death penalty.

While blacks are the leading victims of murder, death rows are dominated by convicts who kill whites. A rational person would oppose the death penalty because it's a racist practice.

I refer you to the case of the Texas Seven, where men that were in prison for life managed to escape and murder a policeman on Christmas Eve.

Had they been put to death, they wouldn't have been able to escape and kill again.

If you were really interested in saving lives, you'd be for the execution of the tobacco executives who lied to congress they didn't think cigarettes caused cancer. 400,000 people in the US die from cigarettes every year -- twice as many people than Saddam Hussein killed in his lifetime. Where's your outrage against them?

The A.P. is running a photo with a caption that says that it shows a vandalized mural of Saddam Hussein. The problem is that it isn't quite what I would call vandalized in any real sense of the word that I grew up with. The writing says, "Long live Saddam and the Baath [Party]."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16396338/

I'm all for the death penalty. Got no problems with it. This one I have a problem with.

Saddam was tucked away in his cell. He was a frail shadow (courtroom hellfire and brimstone aside)of what he was a few short years ago. He would have become even less in the coming decades. Age and hardships in jail would have made him, in propaganda ways, a beaten mouse of a man in time.

Now he may get to become a lion in death.

I hope that doesn't happen. I hope that he doesn't become a symbol for a new and stronger wave of attacks in the coming new year. I really hope all of us seeing this as a strong possible outcome in Iraq's future are wrong. If this adds more fire to the odd group of loyalists or to some of the remaining Saddam hardliners in a country already trembling on the edge.... The Iraq war is lost for sure.

If anyone deserved the death penalty it was him, but it's never a good idea. If you want to show you've got the moral highground this isn't the way.

And when it comes to North American crimes like rape and murder, no it's not 100% effective because the correct person isn't convicted 100% of the time. Innocents are in prisons for crimes they didn't commit and guilty folks go free because of loopholes and money. Throw the death penalty into that mix and you've got an unethical system.

Did he deserve to die? Probably. But that's not my call to make. I'm squishy about how I feel towards the death penalty. I don't want to sentence somebody to die, but I don't think some people deserve to live either.

Regardless, I can't fathom why someone wants to dance around a dead body. I can understand relief and gratefulness it's over, the courts agreed these crimes were wrong but... to rejoice and celebrate death? I'd rather mourn the reason Saddam hung. I know hundreds of thousands that need to be remembered tonight.

Peter, I've heard an interesting argument tonight. Someone said the bible (Christian King James Version) said "Thou Shalt Not Kill". Another corrected this person by saying the original hebrew meaning was "Thou Shalt Not Murder". Their point was that you can kill justly without murder. Is this a correct meaning of the original commandment to the best of your knowledge?

First off, let me preface everything by saying two things. I don't think the death penalty works. On the other hand, if I ever got my own hands on certain people, their lives wouldn't be worth an hour's purchase, and I feel guilty about thinking that way.

Now, as far as Hussein goes--I was relieved when his sons, especially Qusay, were killed. From everything I've heard or read, those two were MUCH more dangerous than their father. But as far as Saddam Hussein himself--I'm neither Muslim nor Iraqi, so I don't know that I can really understand their point of view. Isalmic justice(again, this is just from what I've read) doesn't seem all that different from pther religions or groups. One thing that is laid out, though are what they call Qisas, which means equality. With this, a person's victims are entitled to do the same thing to the person as the person did to the victim.

I don't know that Saddam Hussien will that much more effective as a martyr now that he's dead. But like I said, I'm neither Muslim nor Iraqi. I don't know.

I believe in capital punishment to a point: it should be used on those who are obviously guilty (such as when there is no question of guilt) in murder cases, but not on those that are not blatantly obvious (such as cases where men on death row are now being cleared by DNA evidence).

Yes, that is a fine line, but we know what Saddam did (hell, we gave him the means to do it), and he deserved far worse than what he got.

So, no, I make no bones about the fact that I can smile and laugh away at the fact that three dictators (Milosevic, Pinochet, and now Hussein) have all bit the big one in the last year. And if one of them needed to be helped along, all the better.

If Mike's facts are anywhere near the truth, then it's a perverse problem in our system that needs to be fixed: people should not be on death row for decades, and it shouldn't cost an arm and a leg to see justice served once and for all.

Posted by John Judy:
"Artocities" are committed by Rob Liefeld.

You forgot Greg Land.

> 15 years ago, the reported cost to execute a
> convict was $9 million. The annual cost to jail
> him was less than $30,000. A murderer jailed at
> 20 would have to live to 80 for the death
> penalty to be cost effective. Citing cost as a
> merit of the death penalty is riculous.

Mike, don't get me wrong. The cost of death penalty cases is ridiculous and requires reform as well. I wholly believe in innocent until proven guilty. But once guilt is determined, punishment should be swift (and cost effective).

I'm sure that someone will point out how many innocent men are on death row, later vindicated by dna testing. I also believe that the laws surrounding evidence should be adjusted as well to require dna testing wherever feasible. Every step should be taken to ensure that those convicted are indeed guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

At the end of the day, though, suffer not a rapist to live.

Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net

> And when it comes to North American crimes like
> rape and murder, no it's not 100% effective
> because the correct person isn't convicted 100%
> of the time. Innocents are in prisons for crimes
> they didn't commit and guilty folks go free
> because of loopholes and money. Throw the death
> penalty into that mix and you've got an
> unethical system.

Ian, by that logic it makes no sense to imprison the convicted much less execute them. If we are constantly second-guessing judgements, perhaps it's more merciful to set them all free?

Of course there are flaws with our system! Of course it requires reform! But at some point you have to say "this is as good as it gets, let's move forward."

I would not presume to implement a more frequent application of the death penalty without first correcting some of the appalling shortcomings of the existing system.

Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net

I'm with PAD here. I mean I know, I KNOW that Saddam inflicted worse suffering than what he endured during his execution. I'm aware of that...and yet emotionally, for reasons I can't understand, I feel a little sorry for him.

For one thing, hanging is neither a quick death nor a painless one.

For another, he was described as a "broken man" in one report I read. No ranting, no defiance, no acting evil. He was just a pitiful shell of his former self.

Then he was executed and people danced around the body.

If somebody were watching that scene and didn't know who Saddam was or what he'd done, they would probably be horrified by the actions of the spectators and the executioners.

If capital punishment must be used, it should be to remove a threat from the world and make people safer, NOT to satisfy somebody's bloodlust. The executioners should not resemble the criminals, not in any way, shape, or form. There should be no cruelty, no sadism, no joy taken in somebody's death. That is--supposedly--what separates civilized people from sociopaths.

The other thing Mr. David said: we don't need another martyr. If Saddam came across as sympathetic to me, even if it was just on an emotional level, can you imagine how his Sunni followers feel right now? Trust me, if they are in a position to make people pay, they will do so. This is gonna get worse before it gets better, if it ever gets better.

I hate to bring up comics during a serious discussion but as far as I'm concerned, a lot of what I learned about capital punishment or death as revenge, etc has been explored in Batman and other similar titles.

Great, now he's dead--does that really bring back those he's killed? Has it really made anything right? Or will everyone he's affected still have that pit of emptiness inside them?

I'm not saying he shouldn't be dead, you have no arguments from me. And I'm not saying I'm against capital punishment, there are people in this world that truly are hard-wired for evil tendencies (what is evil and what isn't discussion notwithstanding) and I think death sometimes is called for (though I don't know if I'd ever be strong enough to pull the level, etc) However, I'd rather Saddam's death have happened in battle and not after a circus of a trial. As Peter said, he's one of the ultimate martyrs.

> I mean, what's the point of killing him? He was caught! And now he's free. Oh well.

The point? Maybe the fact that there's one less monster in the world? The fact that Mandella was 'caught' and still managed to inspire an, admitedly non-violent, uprising in South Africa from jail?

>If anyone deserved the death penalty it was him, but it's never a good idea.

Beg to differ. Considering the violence in some prisons (and I don't mean Hollywood's version), it's clear some people aren't 'safe' to have around even behind bars.

> If you want to show you've got the moral highground this isn't the way.

Given how many people have been executed in Iraq over the last few decades (Hussein even had his own SON executed), one more really isn't exactly taking the low road.

Yes, I have no problems with the death penalty, in limited cases, and where there can be no doubt of guilt. Consider the Canadian couple (upper-class yuppie husband/wife) who were convicted of raping, killing a couple of teen girls - one of them the wife's own kid sister. I'd have not lost any sleep if Canada had the death penalty and applied it to them. Possible judicial error? Not bloody likely when they videotaped themselves committing the atrocities.

So? They aren't dead. They're alive. In fact the sick wife is out on parole. Having to move a lot. Seems wherever she relocates to, her neighbours don't seem pleased to have her around for some reason.

This is 'justice'? Yeah, sure.

I hate to bring up comics during a serious discussion but as far as I'm concerned, a lot of what I learned about capital punishment or death as revenge, etc has been explored in Batman and other similar titles.

I don't think bringing comics into it makes it any less serious, Tom. The argument about whether or not killing is ever justified has been addressed in comics. Spider-Man and the Punisher have gotten into it, and so did Storm and Wolverine back in the day. That's just the times I can think of off the top of my head.

I'd feel better if he'd died in battle too. Maybe it comes from seeing how villains were portrayed in fiction all my life: villains would capture good guys and torment them while they were helpless. Perhaps I came to associate that with villainy.

Saddam has been helpless for a long time now. I won't even speculate how he was treated while he was locked up. And in the end, we had this guy who had been beaten and we (technically the Iraqi government acting on our behalf) killed him in cold blood. I almost wrote the joke from X-Factor about how that's like warm blood except with the air conditioning on, but decided there wasn't anything funny about this.

I don't feel right about the killing of a helpless, defeated victim. Realistic or not, I have preconceived notions about what the good guys will and will not do, and when the U.S. or its proxies fail to live up to that I feel great disappointment and disillusionment.

Back to comics...Norman Osborn is one of the meanest, nastiest, most sadistic mofos in the Marvel Universe. He has put Peter Parker through hell. Nevertheless, when I saw him being dragged away in "Civil War: Frontline" to a fate he was absolutely terrified of, I pitied him, despite all he had done. Because he was helpless and scared.

I don't care who somebody is or what they've done--even the worst of the worst only deserve to suffer so much before you call off the dogs, figuratively speaking.

Posted by Robert Fuller

"if a person killed and tortured one of your children or your wife, would want that person executed and pay for the crime?"

No, because I don't think the law should be about personal vengeance.

That's close to my position - however, my position is that the law shouldn't get in the way of personal vengeance in cases like that.

Given how many people have been executed in Iraq over the last few decades (Hussein even had his own SON executed), one more really isn't exactly taking the low road.

Starwolf, if you're saying we're not as bad as Saddam was...that's not saying very much, pal.

We see killing going on there every day. It's not stopping. Where's the perspective on this? I see the media treating this as one more celebrity event. I think that strips us of our humanity; let's put aside Saddam who one can easily understand dismissing; this kind of circus dehumanizes the Iraqi people, the media, and us, the viewers. It's not something that should be in any way entertainment or a spectator sport, and yet that's what it's been from the start; all the commentary about why this was necessary has been about satisfying the masses, perhaps not just in Iraq, but also here, so we don't feel like all our soldiers died for nothing. That just doesn't sit right with me, and makes me feel more certain that this is the wrong course, not just in this particular case, but the wrong way for us as human beings. It's dragging us backward. I want us to get better, so we can one day look back at today the way we now look back at the justice and morality of the Dark Ages.

To which I can only say: amen.

StarWolf posted:
Given how many people have been executed in Iraq over the last few decades (Hussein even had his own SON executed), one more really isn't exactly taking the low road.

Sorry, but Hussein did NOT have his own son executed. Saddam had two sons (Qusay and Uday) and a possible third, Ali (one of Hussein's daughters claims Ali is actually her son, and therefore, Saddam's grandson) and three daughters (Rana, Raghad, and Hala). Saddam did have his wife's BROTHER (and childhood friend), Adnan Tuffah, executed, and he withdrew his protection from the husbands of his daughters, Rana and Raghad, after they defected from and then returned to Iraq (Saddam had pardoned them, but the men were killed by other clan members who felt they were traitors).

Peter, you're one of my grander role models, but I'm afraid this is going to be one of the rare instances in which I disagree with you.

I am absolutely pro-death penalty, especially in extreme cases such as this. I was once called upon to define "evil," and I came up with "one who deliberately and without remorse harms another sentient being."

In cases of those who have raped and murdered, I am not only for the death penalty, I am for the victim or the victim's loved ones to be able to decide how it should be carried out. I am all over the Code Of Hammurabi.

However, I DO think the current judicial system is in need of a MASSIVE overhaul before these standards can be applied and applied JUSTLY. I know I am trying to compare justice to vengeance here, but I believe in the extent of the punishment fitting the extent of the crime. Should a thief have his hands cut off? No, but he should recompense the victim in fair value and spend a little time in jail, dependent on the value of the stolen good(s). Pretty much what's in place now.

Serial rapists ought to have their feet and genitalia messily removed, all I'm sayin' there.

It is totally effed up that we should kill to prove killing is wrong, but sometimes it is well and truly the most fitting punishment. The bereaved of the deceased oftentimes know no peace until they have the assurance that the monster who killed their loved one is gone forever; a boogeyman that has well and truly been banished.

I do think that VERY STRICT standards ought to be placed on the death penalty, and that it ought to be an extreme rarity - even more so than it is now. There should be unexonerable (did I just make that word up?) evidence that the accused is, in fact, guilty. It would be much fairer to all those involved. Like a lot of people are saying here, we can agree or disagree on our stance on the death penalty, but I think we're all nodding that yes, the judicial system needs a hell of a lot more refined strictures.

And Saddam TOTALLY got off light, but that's just IMHO, as you internet folk like to call it. :)

Considering how many people suffered and died because of Saddam, I'm pleased as punch he's dead. Pitiful end or not, he was a monster.

I may not agree with HOW Bush went about taking him out of power, but removing the psycho remains the one and only thing Bush has done that I agree with.

So with his death, I'm free to hate Bush equally as much for all his scummy actions getting innocent people maimed, killed, and traumitized for life.

"Ian, by that logic it makes no sense to imprison the convicted much less execute them. If we are constantly second-guessing judgements, perhaps it's more merciful to set them all free?"

If future evidence clears someone wrongly convicted you can free them. If you kill the person, they're still dead.

And I have nothing against second guessing judges. Checks and balances are a positive.

I have no problem with Death Penalty, I think we should use it more. Especially in "open and shut" cases with DNA evidence, VIDEO taped crimes, etc.

I believe we have every right to make that judgement, because there is no "God" to mete out punishment after death.

15 years ago, the reported cost to execute a convict was $9 million. The annual cost to jail him was less than $30,000. A murderer jailed at 20 would have to live to 80 for the death penalty to be cost effective. Citing cost as a merit of the death penalty is [ridiculous.]

Mike, don't get me wrong. The cost of death penalty cases is ridiculous and requires reform as well.

Oops, I made a math error: $9 million / $30,000 isn't 60 years. It's 300 years. A convict would have to serve that long for the death penalty to be cost effective.

Considering Governor George Ryan's reservations, reform would obviously increase the expense to execute someone.

I was once called upon to define "evil," and I came up with "one who deliberately and without remorse harms another sentient being."

Like Harry Truman?

"why are you oppsed to Capital punishment? this man killed thousands of people, sureley he deserves death."

I don't doubt it. But murder is murder is murder. I'm not convinced that becoming that which we despise is morally or ethically a good thing. We have advanced so much as a society from hundreds of years ago; I don't see that an inability to move beyond taking human life is a good thing.

"if a person killed and tortured one of your children or your wife, would want that person executed and pay for the crime?"

Yes. Absolutely. In fact, if they offered me the opportunity, I'd want to pull the switch on the electric chair myself. Hell, hand me a baseball bat and give me ten minutes with him.

But I shouldn't have that right. I shouldn't have the right to take another's life any more than they have the right to take the life of one of my family.

PAD

"What are you going to do, put them in prison for life? I refer you to the case of the Texas Seven, where men that were in prison for life managed to escape and murder a policeman on Christmas Eve."

And I can point to many examples of guns used in accidental shootings. Yet I daresay those who favor unfettered gun ownership would be unimpressed by it.

PAD

Regarding Saddam Hussein in particular, I'm surprised that he was killed this quickly, but I don't think it will make any major difference to the civil unrest in Iraq.

Meanwhile, I don't have any strong feelings about the death penalty in general. I can understand why PAD doesn't agree with it, and the "Crazy Eight" story from Hulk does provide a pretty compelling argument against it. On the other hand, it doesn't generally bother me if I hear about someone being executed, any more than I mourn for "2 people killed in motorway crash".

When I was younger, I used to think that there was a logical flaw in a system that said "Killing people is wrong, so to prove it we're going to kill you." However, I now think that there's a way to construct an internally consistent logic for this, based on the concept of human rights vs human privileges. For instance, suppose that "not being tortured" is a fundamental right whereas "not being killed" is a privilege. If you kill someone else then you surrender your own privilege, and therefore if the state kills you then they haven't done anything hypocritical.

As for cost, I think it cuts both ways. For instance, I read a report a while back (URL no longer functioning) which said that it cost £40,000 per year to keep someone in a high security prison in 2000/2001. Meanwhile, according to the Guardian:
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,755717,00.html
the average teacher's salary in 2002 was £26,400 yer year. In theory, I think that there would be a short term benefit to diverting all of that money from prisons to education, hopefully reducing the future need for prisons. In practice, the process (in America) does sound a bit more complicated/expensive than just paying a guard to walk around with a shotgun one morning.

Incidentally, I live in the UK, and we don't have a death penalty here at the moment, so the issue of "people who support it are being racist" doesn't apply because that's a specific detail of the way the policy has been implemented elsewhere.

There's a scene at the end of "The Demolished Man" (by Alfred Bester) where one character basically says "The death penalty was a really stupid idea, and I'm glad we got rid of it. If you're smart enough to plan a crime like this, then you could be a great asset to society once you're rehabilitated." I can understand that approach (and I enjoy reading the comic "Thunderbolts").

However, my concern in other cases is "What's the best case scenario?" E.g. suppose that Ian Huntley (a British guy who killed two schoolgirls in Soham a few years ago) saw the error of his ways, and became a changed man. Would he be released? I very much doubt it. Back before Myra Hindley died, I doubted that she'd ever be released, since it would be political suicide for whichever Home Secretary allowed it. And I suspect that a similar thing applies here, although it's a bit early to say (it depends how many people remember this in ten years). So, if he's not released, what will he do? The best case I can think of is that he writes a book, and convinces other would-be child killers to mend their ways. But I think that's unlikely.

More generally, suppose that someone who committed a less emotive crime is released. Quite frankly, I think that a lot of criminals are very stupid, and poorly educated. So, even after release, the best career path they're likely to have is working at the local MacDonalds. So, perhaps there is a question of value for money, when we're comparing prison to education. When Thompson and Venables were released (the two boys who killed James Bulger), I remember an interview with a girl the same age as them (I think she may have been at school with them, but I'm not certain about that). Anyway, she was rather bitter that they'd received a far better education than she had (effectively private tuition for 12 years).

The related issue is "how much protection should the state provide for prisoners like Huntley?" Arguably, one valid approach would be to take them out of solitary confinement, but put them with people who are near the end of their sentences. Then say to the other prisoners "If you behave yourself, you'll be out on probation next month. If you kill him, you'll stay here for another 10 years." That might even provide a useful test of how well they've been rehabilitated.

"I do think that VERY STRICT standards ought to be placed on the death penalty, and that it ought to be an extreme rarity - even more so than it is now. There should be unexonerable (did I just make that word up?) evidence that the accused is, in fact, guilty. It would be much fairer to all those involved."

You're asking for something that's impossible: Degrees of guilt. "Yes, we find the defendant guilty, but not SO guilty that we're sure enough to execute him. But, oh, this guy over here (dark skin, presumably, without the money for a top flight defense attorney), we're absolutely positive that he's definitely so guilty that HIM, we can execute.

A funny thing about giving a government the right to do something in very, very limited circumstances: Over time, they will expand the right to do it in more and more circumstances. I know that theoretically it may make sense to say that we only give the death penalty to a guy who, in full view of six people, murders a cop, then rips out his heart, eats it, and is arrested with blood all over his face and bits of heart in his teeth while singing, "Happy days are here again because I killed a cop and ate his heart." But in short order the black guy who was picked up off the street by a witness who saw a perp for two seconds while he was fleeing the scene is going to go to the chair while insisting on his innocence. And justice, being blind, will see no difference, because guilty/not guilty is a binomial situation. It's either/or.

"And Saddam TOTALLY got off light, but that's just IMHO, as you internet folk like to call it. :)"

And it's my opinion as well, which is kind of the point. I'm a big believer in Kathleen's concept: That the murder should be incarcerated for life in a cell while being forced to watch, 24/7, videos of the lives of those he killed. Image after image after image of births, birthday parties, graduations, weddings, over and over and over, with the volume turned way up, so they can experience every laugh, every cry, every moment of celebration. More often than not, murderers dehumanize their victims. This way they spend the rest of their natural existence faced with the inescapable fact that their victims were human beings.

I appreciate the philosophies of Hammurabi, but we can't confine our view of justice to the best thinking that was available centuries ago. Not if we're to advance as a race.

PAD

Pretty good points, John.

But in this issue there is a lot of emotion, there are religious issues, there is ideology, it's a pretty hard issue to discuss rationally for all of us.

I have to say it bothers me a little how many words and thoughts and energy will be spent on discussing Saddam's death, while most of his VICTIMS' deaths (not to say the deaths of everyone who died in the Iraq Invasion and afterwards) are only statistics.

People humanize Saddam Hussein, and yet most of the nameless victims in this conflict remain nameless, dehumanized.

I can't deny it, when a formerly powerful man that commited so much evil is killed, I still feel a deep sense of satisfaction.

I know full well that the Dubya invasion was a mistake and mostly likely a crime, I know full well that Saddam's death at this point will not make things any better, but who can say what will make things any better in this messed-up world we live? I'm just glad when monsters die.

Having said that, PAD's suggestion on how to punish murderers sounds pretty good to me too. Forcing them to confront the humanity of their victims. That is pretty brilliant!

The only problem is that that wouldn't work so well against that minority of truly messed-up psychopaths that are utterly unable to connect emotionally to human beings. They would, at most, just be annoyed at being forced to watch their victims' birthday parties and weddings.

"15 years ago, the reported cost to execute a convict was $9 million. The annual cost to jail him was less than $30,000. "

Thanks to liberals that wanted to add stipulation upon stipulation. It sure didn't cost $9 million to execute Hussein, did it?

"If you were really interested in saving lives, you'd be for the execution of the tobacco executives who lied to congress they didn't think cigarettes caused cancer. 400,000 people in the US die from cigarettes every year -- twice as many people than Saddam Hussein killed in his lifetime. Where's your outrage against them?"

I LOVE watching people flail about like this when they can't come up with an intelligent argument. Tobacco executives did not go to these people's homes and shove tobacco in their mouths, did they? No. Smokers made a decision to smoke. Tough for them that they have to pay for it now. Anyone that doesn't realize that sucking smoke into your body is bad for you is someone that I don't really want in the gene pool anyway.

"And I can point to many examples of guns used in accidental shootings. Yet I daresay those who favor unfettered gun ownership would be unimpressed by it."

Good dodge of my point, it's pretty much what I've come to expect from the anti death penalty crowd.

I'm against the death penalty, with the same exceptions PAD mentions--were a family member killed I'd want to...well. Don't like the government having so much power.

That said, this was Iraq's call to make, not ours and given the usual way such people are noramlly handled in most of the Muslim world his was a relatively gentle end.

There is, however, an argument to make for his execution, that certain crimes against humanity demand a punishment far greater than mere imprisonment. Eichman may never have personally bloodied his hands directly but I lose no sleep over his execution by the Israelis. Same for all those executed at Nuremberg. Had Pol Pot been strung up a tree (or Mengele or Pinoche or, still reputedly among the living, Castro) I'd see it as quite justified.

One could argue that keeping him alive would have had a far greater risk of making him a martyr or at least a potential focal point of terrorism than killing him. That carzy blind shiek who recently died was said to have continued to influence events even behind bars.

What I really wish is that when they found him in that spider hole they had tossed a few grenades down the hatch.. I've heard a number of commentators saying the same thing--butthen doesn't that imply that it isn't the death penalty one objects to but rather the formal use of such?

Moral considerations aside, there's a simple, practical reason any intelligent person should oppose the death penalty. However airtight you believe your case to be, you can never be 100% sure. Take the case over here of the Birminghan Six, who were arrested and convicted of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings in which dozens were killed and maimed. Forensic tests 'proved' they had been handling nitro-glycerine so this was clearly an a open-and-shut case. Not so, as it turns out. It was later proven that the test was flawed, that it also gave a positive result for nitro-cellulose, which is used to coat playing cards. Guess what they had been doing before they were arrested?

They served 16 years for a crime they did not commit. Had we not disposed of the barbarity that is the death penalty they would have been hanged. This was the case that finally convinced then Home Secretary Michael Howard, a Tory and a lifelong believer in the death penalty so no liberal he, that it was wrong. As he put it, an apology and compensation would always be inadequate but these were far superior to "the cold comfort of a posthumous pardon".

"15 years ago, the reported cost to execute a convict was $9 million. The annual cost to jail him was less than $30,000. "

Thanks to liberals that wanted to add stipulation upon stipulation. It sure didn't cost $9 million to execute Hussein, did it?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but without looking at anything online, I'm pretty confident saying that the last 3 years have cost us QUITE A BIT financially, not to mention military or civilian lives lost. I've heard $2 billion a month, and over 3 years since the start of the war.....who wants to research it for me and find a dollar number for The Debacle Factor?

I'm anti-death penalty, and while I don't agree with what happened here, I can see the logic of this.

Alive, there's always a chance of him getting free, rising to power. Death, there's no chance of that.

Alive, he can communicate to his followers, and give orders. Again, hard to do dead.

Alive, he gives motive and power to the Baath for many years. Dead, while a martyre, I expect his influence will still be shorter lived.

I think alive he increased the chance for escalation (even further) of the civil infighting in Iraq. While I wouldn't be suprised for some short term retaliation, I expect in the long term this will help.

My personal preference would have been having Sadam placed in US custody, and moved to Camp X-Ray, out of Iraq, and let him rot for life. But to say there's no logic in his death I think is wrong.

"That said, this was Iraq's call to make, not ours "

Actually, that's another aspect that bugs me; no matter how the White House is trying to spin it, it wasn't an Iraqi affair by any means.

We invaded their country. We overthrew him. We hunted him down and captured him. We helped set up the government that tried him. He remained in our hands right up until we turned him over for execution. We built the freakin' gallows. The Iraqi government was the public face of this for obvious political reasons, but there's no way we can say this was their operation.

So responsibility for his execution and how it was handled has to lay largely with us. Remember, he was an international war criminal. He killed far more Iranians than he did Iraqis, and he also attacked Kuwait and Israel. We would have been perfectly justified turning him over to the same international court that convicted Milosevich, but we chose to participate in setting up an ad hoc court with serious questions about due process, basically for political expediency. So that's another moral issue that makes me feel a bit queasy about this whole escapade.

"And I can point to many examples of guns used in accidental shootings. Yet I daresay those who favor unfettered gun ownership would be unimpressed by it."

"Good dodge of my point, it's pretty much what I've come to expect from the anti death penalty crowd."

It was actually precisely on target, a fact that you yourself have dodged, which is pretty much what I've come to expect from the gun loving crowd. The point is that no system is perfect, but if the choice is taking the risk that, in an aberration, convicted criminals might escape, as opposed to systematic application of the death sentence to people of color who might well be innocent, I'll err on the side of not sentencing innocent people to death. Just how many death-row inmates need to be freed upon the revelation, via DNA testing, that they're innocent, does one require to make the point?

In other words, if the notion that killing someone is wrong is insufficient, certainly the notion that killing someone who did nothing to deserve it must carry SOME weight.

PAD

"Alive, he gives motive and power to the Baath for many years. Dead, while a martyre, I expect his influence will still be shorter lived."

Funny. In the TV drama "I, Claudius," a Roman senator dismissively says much the same thing to Claudius about an executed Jew names Joshua Bar Joseph, or "Jesus" to his followers. When Claudius says, "So he DOES have followers," the Senator says, "Oh yes, yes...it's a cult. There are ALWAYS cults."

Obviously Saddam isn't Jesus. But never underestimate the rallying power of the dead.

PAD

I don't think he mattered much either way; that's why I think his killing was more about us than it was about him.

Saddam being executed is not something I would have gone with. He got away with a lot of stuff for years because it was expedient for 'us' to let him get away with it, we put him out of business and it's not like he was about to re-offend any time soon. On t'other hand, it does send a clear message to other dictators that we will get our hands really dirty if we have to.

Death penalties... my ten cents worth, if you're going to have a death penalty then the jury have to ask for it, and they all have to push a button before the current flows. If the people tasked with determining guilt are certain enough to do the deed themselves it should reduce the 'what if he's innocent' ratio and still have a real deterrent factor if criminals knew they could be executed.

For some crimes though, a sentence of life imprisonment should mean life, and a bit more emphasis should go on protecting citizen safety than on the rights of people who have deliberately chosen to opt out of social behaviour.

The latest figure I just Googled in Scotland shows a 60% re-offending rate for violent crimes. Prisons over here are either at or close to capacity and many cases are being shuffled through the system with an agenda driven by a need to avoid imposing jail sentences.

If we need more prisons, and need more "cost-effective" prisons we should bite the bullet and address that need. Hell, if worse comes to worse, dump 'em on one of our islands and leave 'em to it...

Cheers.

"Obviously Saddam isn't Jesus. But never underestimate the rallying power of the dead."

Agreed. Of course, I don't expect Sadam to rise from his grave on Sunday...

While I'll grant your point, I think history lends us more examples of people having more influence alive, than dead. If we too quickly accept the power of Matyredom, then we better be careful about dropping bombs in Afganistan, for fear of accidently killing Osama and making him a Martyr.

>>Given how many people have been executed in Iraq over the last few decades, one more really isn't exactly taking the low road.
>Starwolf, if you're saying we're not as bad as Saddam was...that's not saying very much, pal

No, but remember: we didn't kill him. His own peoples' tribunal found him guilty, assigned and executed the penalty. (At least that's the impression I got from the cursory reading I had time to do while dealing with a family illness at this end.)

>Sorry, but Hussein did NOT have his own son executed. ... Saddam did have his wife's BROTHER (and childhood friend), Adnan Tuffah, executed,

Ah, my mistake. But still, not much of an improvement.

> I don't doubt it. But murder is murder is murder. I'm not convinced that becoming that which we despise is morally or ethically a good thing.

Can't entirely agree there. We put down rabid dogs because they are an ongoing menace. Why shouldn't the same apply to a rabid/pshycho human? To my mind, not guilty by reason of insanity is a tricky proposition. They are a greater threat because a sane individual might be reformed, might be argued with. An insane one probably can't.

>A funny thing about giving a government the right to do something in very, very limited circumstances: Over time, they will expand the right to do it in more and more circumstances.

Well, yes. That's something I keep telling people. That new law they propose sounds harmless enough, but what would happen if it was expanded to include ... or altered to go to this extreme...? And people keep saying I exaggerate. Sure. But I'm not usually wrong. History has shown this. Give them an inch and so forth.

>Image after image after image of births, birthday parties, graduations, weddings, over and over and over, with the volume turned way up, so they can experience every laugh, every cry, every moment of celebration.

I do have a problem with that. I could see that driving someone insane, and thus making them an even worse threat. Especially in a volatile place such as Iraq where the individual still has lots of supporters who'd have loved to get him out of jail. This may be why they opted to finish it fast before a plan to save Hussein could have been completed and successfully executed.

Who benefits? The neocons who hopefully can get their own intimate associations with Saddam pushed further out of the light; the madmen who hope to help unite the warring parties in Iraq against the U.S., and to rally anti-Americanism (and anti-Israelism) everywhere; and the Christian religious fanatics who are hoping to spark the end of the world through their actions in Iraq.

That's who benefits from Saddam's death. Not a good guy among them, but that's to be expected: Evil acts (and capital punishment is one) bear evil fruits.

"15 years ago, the reported cost to execute a convict was $9 million. The annual cost to jail him was less than $30,000. "

Thanks to liberals that wanted to add stipulation upon stipulation. It sure didn't cost $9 million to execute Hussein, did it?

If you are going to execute someone, you better make damn sure that you're killing the right person and the appeals process reduces that likelihood. The "stipulation upon stipulation" help prevent the possibility that another injustice is not committed by executing a man innocent of the crime. Statistically , I understand that the system has almost certainly commited that injustice more than once.

The attitude of "shoot 'em in the back of the head as soon as they've been found guilty" isn't one worthy of a society that claims itself civilized.

"What are you going to do, put them in prison for life? I refer you to the case of the Texas Seven, where men that were in prison for life managed to escape and murder a policeman on Christmas Eve."

"And I can point to many examples of guns used in accidental shootings. Yet I daresay those who favor unfettered gun ownership would be unimpressed by it."

"Good dodge of my point, it's pretty much what I've come to expect from the anti death penalty crowd. "

Well, I'm FOR the death penalty and found your original point to be... well... pointless. Seven guys were in prison for life and escaped to cause mayhem. Ok, $**t happens.

In 1984, James and Linwood Briley, Lem Tuggle, Earl Clanton, Derick Peterson and Willie Jones escaped from Mecklenburg Correctional Center. If you don't know Virginia history, that was the 1984 escape from death row. Guess what that means? They weren't in prison for life. They were waiting to die when they escaped. And lots of fun was had by all until they were recaptured.

It's such a nice memory. I was thirteen at the time and got to be told that I was an "at risk" individual. My father was one of the Petersburg officers that helped to put some of those animals away. They, and several others involved in their crimes but were not part of the escape, swore in court that they would escape and kill the families of the people that put them behind bars.

Escapes happen. One day, another big escape will happen. It means exactly squat other someone at a prison got sloppy. It also adds nothing to a debate on the death penalty.

Anybody who wants to know what those animals were...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briley_Brothers

A couple thoughts:

1) If this is how we treat our "great ally", is it any wonder our nation has fewer friends than ever before?

2) If this is the punishment for killing 148 of your own citizens, then what is the punishment for killing more than 20 times that number of your own soldiers (according to the official Pentagon count)?

3) Can that punishment be applied as quickly as Saddam's was?

"I was once called upon to define "evil," and I came up with "one who deliberately and without remorse harms another sentient being.""

That's a pretty broad definition, one that includes soldiers in war, boxers, rape victims who fight back, pretty much anyone using force to defend themselves from attack, and, depending on your definition of "sentient," hunters, slaughterhouse workers, etc. That's a lot of evil. And are we just talking about physical harm, or does it also include emotional or psychological harm (which can often be even more harmful than the merely physical)?

I agree. I appose capital punishment as well. Period.

A government should not have the right to take a life, mass murderer or not. Look up Optimus Prime's saying on his toy box.

I would like to throw my 2 cents worth here... To paraphrase "With great freedoms come great responsibilities". I believe whole heartedly that if and when you choose with those freedoms to violate the civil and human rights of others, your forfiet alot of your own.

So if someones actions lead to a place where they have violated someones human and civil rights, can we please stop behaving like the criminals have more rights than the victim.

As Peter said he should not have the right to take a mans life in vengence, and truthfully no man should have that right, but goverment is not one man. Through out history goverments purpose is to get done what individuals either can not or should not be allowed to do.

Sure I admit goverment may not always get it right but thay have a better track record than most vigilanties

all that bieng said, I will not shed a tear over saddam, other than he will now have to wait so long in hell till he finaly gets to meet dubya!!!!

As with many important decisions in life, the decision to execute Saddam has both downsides and upsides.

For example, for those who argue Saddam's execution will foment Saddam's supporters into a killing spree, all I can say is, "Yeah, right." After all, Baghdad can't get much worse than it already is, and the same people making the threats are no doubt the people who are already killing fellow Muslims with ruthless abandon just because of a difference of opinion regarding who is and who is not the true successors of Mohammed. Thus, if you think executing Saddam will make these radicals hate "non-believers" more than they already do, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell to you real cheap.

Heck, one could just as easily argue that with the symbolic head of the past Iraqi regime gone, it might weaken the resolve of the Sunni radicals rather than strengthen it. The fact is, NO ONE knows what the long-term effect of the execution will be.

Sparing Saddam just because one dislikes capital punishment, when capital punishment is a legal recourse in Iraq, boils down to nothing more than a difference of philosophical opinion. In my opinion, at its core, capital punishment is not an act of vengence any more than removing a malignant tumor from the body is an act of vengence. It is a legal and viable option.

On a related note, I am often surprised by the number of people I meet who say they are against capital punishment, yet have absolutely no qualms about abortion (even late-term abortion) and/or state-assisted suicide. That makes no logical sense to me.

Anyone here subscribe to the "mob hit" theory?

And it's my opinion as well, which is kind of the point. I'm a big believer in Kathleen's concept: That the murder should be incarcerated for life in a cell while being forced to watch, 24/7, videos of the lives of those he killed. Image after image after image of births, birthday parties, graduations, weddings, over and over and over, with the volume turned way up, so they can experience every laugh, every cry, every moment of celebration. More often than not, murderers dehumanize their victims. This way they spend the rest of their natural existence faced with the inescapable fact that their victims were human beings.
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SER: Arguably, that would fall under mental torture and thus cruel and unusual punishment (c'mon, you know a clever lawyer would love to may hay of this). Also, I honestly think that this would have no effect on your more callous criminals -- other than annoyance, like being forced to watch bad movies all day. It's the MST3K punishment. The murderers would wind up creating robots to help them riff on the more tedious moments in the home videos.

Here's where I stand on capital punishment: As an atheist, I don't believe in a heaven or hell, so this world is the only one there is and everyone gets only one shot. Also, philosophically, pretty much anything is better than death (granted, I do consider some of the more painful diseases and illnesses up there but we go back to cruel and unusual punishment if we were to inflict them on the murderers). I have a hard time imagining the justice in a murderer in prison for the rest of his life still able to read books, listen to music, see a sunset, when his victim never will again. There's nothing really humane you can do to a killer that would completely remove some of the simple joys that exist is simply being alive.

That said, I don't see how religious people justify a belief in capital punishment. Sure, they might be in a hurry to get the bad guy to hell but I think the anticipation of what's coming would be enough punishment.

Of course, the system is corrupt enough right now that I agree with not having a death penalty. In a perfect world, with absolute certainty of guilt and fair trials, sure, but we're nowhere near that day.

As for Hussein, forgive me if I don't dance for joy that we executed a 69 year old man who would probably not have been the leader of Iraq for much longer had we intervened or not. All we did was spare him a future of Depends.

In all the posts I've seen so far, there is a point missing. Nobody thinks about the Kurds. So I will:

Saddam was hanged for one crime only, the murder of a hundred or so villagers. However, he did worse to the Kurds, using chemical weapons to do so. A trial for that genocide was ready to go, but it will never happen now. And this is really dangerous, for two reasons.

a) By not allowing this trial to happen, the Iraki courts, and by extension, the Iraqi government (and, some would say, the US government) are sending a very bad message to the Kurds. They're saying in effect: "Sorry, but you don't rate. You have been victims of a genocide, but you won't get what other victims of genocide deserved and got: a chance to see the crimes made against you being tried, a chance to see your victims being vindicated". Now, the Kurds could well think that, if they don't rate for the Iraqi government, they could as well secede and form their own state. And that would bring Turkey and Iran into an already stinking mess.

b) There was no trial also for the armenian genocide. So, who wants to bet that some people will start saying that the Kurd genocide never happened, the way the Turks claim that the Armenian genocide never happened?

In all the posts I've seen so far, there is a point missing. Nobody thinks about the Kurds. So I will:

Saddam was hanged for one crime only, the murder of a hundred or so villagers. However, he did worse to the Kurds, using chemical weapons to do so. A trial for that genocide was ready to go, but it will never happen now.

Considering that the US government sold Saddam those weapons and involved members of the current administration, such a trial would have been very, very embarrassing for the Bush Administration.

Thus the "mob hit" theory.

You're asking for something that's impossible: Degrees of guilt. "Yes, we find the defendant guilty, but not SO guilty that we're sure enough to execute him. But, oh, this guy over here (dark skin, presumably, without the money for a top flight defense attorney), we're absolutely positive that he's definitely so guilty that HIM, we can execute.

I think you might have misconstrued my comment - it's not a matter of "degrees of guilt" but rather "overwhelming proof of evidence" that I was calling for. I think in instances of murder and rape, the death penalty should be applied but ONLY WHEN there is undeniable evidence - DNA matches and so forth - of guilt. So I wasn't talking so much about levels of guilt rather than levels of substantiated accusations. As rare as the death penalty is, it does have potential for errors and loopholes, i.e. in the execution of someone later posthumously exonerated through evidence. It's happened before, but I think if stricter preventative measures are taken, then it can be used justly and fairly.

One more thing about my post above: What I think should have been done is one big trial, where Saddam would have been tried for every crime, and not one trial for each crime. That way, every one of his victims would have been vindicated. It worked at Nuremberg, right?

My beliefs on the death penalty have changed over the years. In my late teens/early twenties, I thought it was a no-brainer. If you're put to death by the state, you must be guilty. But in my late thirties, I know this is not the case. I'm against the death penalty not because of the morality of the situation (an eye for an eye), but because of the finality of the situation. Once that person is gone, they're gone, and if later evidence shows doubt, you can't do a do-over. There's should be no "Ooops!" when you put a person to death. It annoys me when death penalty advocates use the term "flaws" when talking about post-execution exonerations. That's so cold and distant when talking about taking a human life in error from a far-removed position, not so much different from our former allies Saddam or Pinochet.

I recently caught the British film "Pierrepoint" at the Human Rights film festival held at New York's Lincoln Center. It's about England's last public hangman during the 1950's. I highly recommend it should they release it in America under the alternative title "The Last Hangman." It shows the emotional toll taken on Albert Pierrpoint after notoriously putting hundreds of people to death in his career. On his deathbed, in the 1970's, he recanted the use of capital punishment. Timothy Spall, the actor who plays him in the movie, did a Q&A after the film. He pretty much states how PAD, myself and a good deal of people feel: that, hell yeah, if we had a moment alone with our loved one's killer, who wouldn't lash out, but that after it's all over, it's still wrong and belongs out of the context of personal revenge.

I'm sure that years from now there will be new techniques that will make DNA identification look kind of outdated, and that absolute certainty of the truth may be closer to attainability, but it still won't level the playing field for everyone, in particular minorities and people from lower economic backgrounds.

I can't remember who said it (maybe it was Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson) but I always go back to the quote of, "I would rather let 20 guilty men go free than take the life of one innocent man." And yes, Hussein was certainly a mass murderer, but now that he's gone, isn't his death a hollow victory for America since we've spent about 3,000 plus and counting in soldiers trying to bring him down not to mention the roughly high five figures of Iraqi civilians as well?

I can't remember who said it (maybe it was Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson) but I always go back to the quote of, "I would rather let 20 guilty men go free than take the life of one innocent man."

I've heard this but it really doesn't make sense--nobody is saying "let them go or kill them". There are otehr options.

One thing that might make the death penalty less attractive would be if getting life imprisonment really meant you spend your life in prison. I hate it when a guy gets 50 years and they add that he's eleigoble for parole in 10. F that. Unless in 10 years his victim is somehow undead or unraped I say he serves the full monty.

Considering that the US government sold Saddam those weapons and involved members of the current administration, such a trial would have been very, very embarrassing for the Bush Administration.

The point has been made many times and hasn't meant much. The Chinese might do some atrocity tomorrow with the money you and I send them every time we go shopping, I doubt either of us will be wearing a sackcloth. If we chose to engage with unsavory characters--and the only other option would be pretty much isolationism since that descriobes most of asia and africa and a good chunk of europe--this is what happens.

Saddam was hanged for one crime only, the murder of a hundred or so villagers. However, he did worse to the Kurds, using chemical weapons to do so. A trial for that genocide was ready to go, but it will never happen now. And this is really dangerous, for two reasons.
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SER: They tried him for one crime because they wanted to actually see him punished. Basically, if they tried him for each atrocity, he would have died in prison. Heck, given the list of crimes, that could have happened if he were 39 rather than 69.

Since the goal was to hang him, they figured they would go for the "easiest" murder charge.

While blacks are the leading victims of murder, death rows are dominated by convicts who kill whites. A rational person would oppose the death penalty because it's a racist practice.

But would the same rational person therefore support

I think there are good reasons to oppose capital punishment, but that isn't one of them. For one thing I think it's philosophically and intellectually dishonest, as applied, when people claim they oppose the death penalty as it's applied, because most of the time the person making that claim is a death penalty abolitionist who just doesn't want to admit it. Most people in the US believe that capital punishment is appropriate in at least some circumstances, so death penalty opponents know they won't get very far if they attack capital punishment head on; far better to erode it from the boundaries by attacking its application racially or haggling over the lethal injection process. I don't know you from Adam so I don't know if that's what you're doing; I'm just saying that most of the time that argument is a tactical use of a half-truth. (And I should know a tactical use of a half-truth when I see one-- I'm a lawyer, it's my stock-in-trade.) I also think it's dangerous to argue over what's essentially a math problem when that problem allows a solution you don't like. (Ask a group of death penalty supporters if they'd be fine with putting more white murderers on death row. I suspect the answer will be yes. Problem solved!)

Nuts. Formatting problem. The first paragraph of my post was supposed to be italicized as it is. The second paragraph was to read, "But would the same rational person therefore support the death penalty if those problems were addressed? If the system were reformed to put more white convicts on death row, and more convicts who killed minority victims, would you really be okay with capital punishment? At a minimum, you should agree that the capital case that's coming up in my district in February, involving the serial rape and murder of two black women, presents few complications under your theory, so my boss is probably not oppressing anyone by going forward."

The rest was inadvertently italicized. Oops.

Haven't commented here for over a year, but I did want to weigh in on this.

I've thought about it a lot, and I am disappointed with us still executing people. It might come from all those Star Trek reruns, or SciFi, but I guess I feel that no matter how many atrocities someone has comitted, I always think we, as a people, are better than executing our problems, no matter how deserved it is. I've always thought we've failed a little as a society when we have to resort to execution to handle our problems.

Considering that the US government sold Saddam those weapons and involved members of the current administration, such a trial would have been very, very embarrassing for the Bush Administration.

The point has been made many times and hasn't meant much. The Chinese might do some atrocity tomorrow with the money you and I send them every time we go shopping, I doubt either of us will be wearing a sackcloth. If we chose to engage with unsavory characters--and the only other option would be pretty much isolationism since that descriobes most of asia and africa and a good chunk of europe--this is what happens.

I'm sure you'll agree that there are universes of difference between a). the Chinese, as a theoretical example, gassing a bunch of recalcitrent Tibetians with WMD created and paid for by the profit they make from our borrowing money from them and b). selling chemical weapons to a man, who was expected to primarily use them against a proxy enemy, who uses it to gas his own people.

What I was noting was that trying Saddam for the atrocity of gassing the Kurds, a war crime that (I suspect) many more people around the world would have recognized and have expected Saddam to have been tried for, would have been a exercise in embarassment for the Bush Administration since a number of people in his administration sold those weapons to Hussein.

However, I now think that there's a way to construct an internally consistent logic for this, based on the concept of human rights vs human privileges. For instance, suppose that "not being tortured" is a fundamental right whereas "not being killed" is a privilege. If you kill someone else then you surrender your own privilege, and therefore if the state kills you then they haven't done anything hypocritical.

Life is not a privilege simply because, if it is a privilege, it's one given at the pleasure of mothers not the state, and even mothers cannot legally revoke life.

"...I live in the UK, and we don't have a death penalty here at the moment, so the issue of "people who support it are being racist" doesn't apply..."

Strawman. "To death penalty is a racist policy" is not the same as "people who support it are being racist."

15 years ago, the reported cost to execute a convict was $9 million. The annual cost to jail him was less than $30,000.

Thanks to liberals that wanted to add stipulation upon stipulation. It sure didn't cost $9 million to execute Hussein, did it?

It cost the US $½ trillion, and as many US lives as were lost on 9-11. The reports I've been seeing on the main news sites haven't been estimating $2 billion a month for the war, but $2 billion every 1 or 2 weeks.

I refer you to the case of the Texas Seven, where men that were in prison for life managed to escape and murder a policeman on Christmas Eve.

Had they been put to death, they wouldn't have been able to escape and kill again.

If you were really interested in saving lives, you'd be for the execution of the tobacco executives who lied to congress they didn't think cigarettes caused cancer. 400,000 people in the US die from cigarettes every year -- twice as many people than Saddam Hussein killed in his lifetime. Where's your outrage against them?

I LOVE watching people flail about like this when they can't come up with an intelligent argument. Tobacco executives did not go to these people's homes and shove tobacco in their mouths, did they?

Review the bolded text. Pitiful.

Anyone that doesn't realize that sucking smoke into your body is bad for you is someone that I don't really want in the gene pool anyway.

Like George Bush and Dick Cheney? George Bush smoked at least into his father's presidency, and he still may be smoking cigars, and Dick Cheney smoked himself to at least 4 heart attacks.

We put down rabid dogs because they are an ongoing menace. Why shouldn't the same apply to a rabid/pshycho human?

If the standards for putting down a dog should apply to executing humans, why shouldn't the same standards be applied to dismantling corporations? Corporations have the rights of a citizen, with no criminal liability. What's more sociopathic than that?

Heck, one could just as easily argue that with the symbolic head of the past Iraqi regime gone, it might weaken the resolve of the Sunni radicals rather than strengthen it.

My understanding is that the local culture does not honor living heroes, and if I'm wrong, it's not an extreme exaggeration.

In my opinion, at its core, capital punishment is not an act of vengence any more than removing a malignant tumor from the body is an act of vengence.

No, removing the malignant tumor is analogous to life imprisonment. Removing the malignant tumor and paying 30,000% to microwave the tissue is analogous to capital punishment.

I think there are good reasons to oppose capital punishment, but [selective ethnic application] isn't one of them. For one thing I think it's philosophically and intellectually dishonest, as applied, when people claim they oppose the death penalty as it's applied, because most of the time the person making that claim is a death penalty abolitionist who just doesn't want to admit it.

"Equal but separate" was a justification for segregation until the supreme court ruled against it, because "separate but equal" was not how segregation was practiced.

Considering the challenge to segregation was itself founded in the selective availability of services among ethnicities, the challenge to the death penalty over its selective application among ethnicities is no more philosophically and intellectually dishonest than the documented supreme court ruling.

On a tangent related to punishment for heads of state.... is anyone else frustrated by the lack of coverage of the revelations in Bob Woodward's just-released interview with Ford?

"I looked upon him as my personal friend. And I always treasured our relationship. And I had no hesitancy about granting the pardon, because I felt that we had this relationship and that I didn't want to see my real friend have the stigma," Ford said in the interview.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/28/AR2006122801247_pf.html

So in other words... with everyone for years in the media going on and on about Ford's great legacy in doing this grand and self-sacrificing gesture of "helping the nation move on" by pardoning Nixon... he did it for the most basic political reason of all; cronyism.

The President of the United States commits multiple criminal acts to intimidate and undermine his political opposition, he puts his buddy into a position where he can get him off scott free... and then said buddy is hailed as a national hero, with wall-to-wall coverage, no questions asked.

Does this trouble anyone else? Doesn't this bode very, very badly for the future of our country? Anyone else get the feeling we might see a repeat performance of this all too soon?

Didn't we just recently learn once again the price of not questioning the "official version"?

I guess not.

.
I can't see why any rational person would be FOR the death penalty.
.

I can't see why any rational person would be against the death penalty

.
Quote:
"Now, as far as Hussein goes--I was relieved when his sons, especially Qusay, were killed. From everything I've heard or read, those two were MUCH more dangerous than their father."
----------
Well, from everything I've read, there were weapons of mass destruction, Saddam was behind the airplanes destroying the World Trade Center, and Iraq was going to give us our very own mushroom cloud.

Not that I am saying his sons were altar boys, but that we have to realize that at least half of the stuff we were told was probably false.
.

.
Quote:
"It sure didn't cost $9 million to execute Hussein, did it?"
----------
So far it has cost over $200 billion.
.

The world is better off with Saddam dead.

But let us get to the real reason he was executed so quickly after his conviction.

So he couldn't testify in a higher court (such as the World Court) about the things that Cheney and Rumsfeld told him to do.

This was more than just bringing one man to justice, it was also about covering up other crimes.

To comment on the previously mentioned issue of the following:

"On a related note, I am often surprised by the number of people I meet who say they are against capital punishment, yet have absolutely no qualms about abortion (even late-term abortion) and/or state-assisted suicide. That makes no logical sense to me."

I'm one of those people. For me, it's a woman's right to choose, and I view the issue of aborting a fetus and not taking the life of a child, so I don't think they are related. And state-assisted suicide, for me, explains itself. It's not executing someone, it's helping someone that has chosen to end their own life.

I can't see why any rational person would be FOR the death penalty.

I can't see why any rational person would be against the death penalty

I know plenty of rational people who support either one or the other of these positions. You two need to meet more people :)

Incidentally, I suspect there are countries with far greater potential for embarrassment on the Iraq chemical weapons than us.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/iraq/cw/az120103.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction

It would seem the Germans provided the majority of Iraq's poison gas supplies...insert obvious grim joke here.

All told, 52% of Iraq's international chemical weapon equipment was of German origin... Around 21% of Iraq’s international chemical weapon equipment was French...

Austria is said to have provided 16%, Spain 4.4%. With China, Singapore, Holland, India and Luxembourg (the hell?) also contributing to the chemical weapons program it would seem there is little room left for us...and indeed, the worst thing I've been able to find was our sending biological samples to Iraq such as anthrax, West Nile virus and clostridium perfringens. Which is mind bogglingly stupid but I'm not certain any of those were used against the Kurds (though I would not doubt it).

None of which excuses us or is meant to pass the buck to our European and Middle eastern friends but the story is too often presented as though the USA just handed over every drop of chemicals Saddam ever used. The truth seems far from that (if there is evidence to the contrary please let me know).

>If the standards for putting down a dog should apply to executing humans, why shouldn't the same standards be applied to dismantling corporations?

Because that's a tangent which strays a bit more from the topic than usual. Else, I'd say that, to a large extent, I concur.

SER posted:
Since the goal was to hang him, they figured they would go for the "easiest" murder charge.

Well, they could have gone for the whole shebang since Saddam's guilt was a foregone conclusion. The irony (if I'm using the term properly) in this trial is Saddam was being tried for killing people who were accused by Saddam of being complicit in an assassination attempt.
The simple fact is that this was probably the only "charge" that couldn't have caused much (if any) embarrassment to the US government (mainly in the Reagan and Bushes I & II admins; we shouldn't forget that pic of Smilin' Donny Rumsfeld shaking Saddam's hand--you gotta know, old Rummy's sighing a very big sigh of relief now that Saddam can't point any fingers any more).

The upside is that Hell just got a little more crowded. Given the assumption that the previous sentence is true, therefore Hell just got marginally more inconvenient for Saddam, Satan, and all the denizens who are damned there for all eternity.

I defy anyone to find a downside in that argument. DEFY, I say!

>I can't see why any rational person would be >against the death penalty.

I refer you to my earlier post about why previously pro-DP conservative Michael Howard changed his mind.

James Lynch Said: "(unless it's like the end of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT and a Hussein double was executed while the main man pretends to be his own double.)"

Well, thank you for the spoiler (kidding ^_^).
While I am not against the death penalty for the most heinous[sp] of crimes [mass murderers and the like]; I also feel that killing Saddam will eventually end up making things worse. Initially, however, it doesen't seem like they care as much as we thought (I guess they have been too busy over the past 4 years shooting at each other, and us, to hate Saddam).

Hi Peter, I met you several years ago at a book signing in London, you gave me some fantastic advice, and wrote an incouragement that Stephen King once gave you. I've still to be published, and do not have as much time to write as I used to, but I do still have a few projects on the boil, and I am now a self-employed art consultant. I had a question for you that I have not seen an answer to elsewhere. I absolutely love your New Frontier series (I wish they'd filmed it rather than Enterprise), and I was wondering. Mackenzie is the name that M'k'n'zy adopted when he joined Starfleet, but I was wondering, how would the Xenexian name be phonetically pronounced? Was it intended to be a tetragrammaton that could not be pronounced?
Best wishes for all your future projects,
Tim

Posted by Peter David at December 30, 2006 08:42 AM
"What are you going to do, put them in prison for life? I refer you to the case of the Texas Seven, where men that were in prison for life managed to escape and murder a policeman on Christmas Eve."

"And I can point to many examples of guns used in accidental shootings. Yet I daresay those who favor unfettered gun ownership would be unimpressed by it."
PAD

The only way this would make sense is if,
A. The Texas 7 accidentally killed the people after escaping from prison.
B. The inanimate guns came to life, developed conscious thought and morality, and then accidentally killed people of their own volition.
C. Statistics showing the deaths of people from ladder accidents similarly don't impress those in favor of unfettered ladder ownership.

Posted by: TallestFanEver at December 31, 2006 04:32 AM

I defy anyone to find a downside in that argument. DEFY, I say!

As was depicted on South Park, Satan and Saddam could become lovers.

All of this is moot. Hussein's dead, yes. Executed by a puppet government under the control of the Halliburton Corporation, which effectively runs this country. Corruption all around, yes. A martyr to the Sunnis and Baathists, yes.

A guilty, evil, nasty little tinpot dictator, hell yes. Put in power by the American government, what else is new? We've been propping up one crappy banana republic after another for over a century. And when they get too greedy or too aggressive, we kill them and stick some other punk in power, one who'll do what we tell him to. And to stress our point, we'll tell the new fish to look at what we did to his predecessor, take a good look, boy, because that'll be you if you don't toe the line.

Yes, the death penalty is awful. Eye for an eye would leave us all blind. Sadly, retribution is sometimes called for. When someone commits a crime for which there is no recompense, what else can we do? Lethal injection, which is pretty much the normal method of execution now, is expensive. It's designed so that no one person has the karmic burden of knowing that he's ended the life of another. It's supposedly painless.

But the person being executed has caused pain to his victims and their families, and should be repaid in kind. And while being in a cell for the remainder of his life, forced to watch home movies of his victims sounds like apt punishment, I'm afraid most lawyers would call it cruel and unusual.

There are no easy answers to this. There never have been, and never will be. We can't mindwipe these people, like Ben Reich was in The Demolished Man. All we can do is blunder on the best and worst we can. And that means more people will die, for good or ill.

Incidentally, I suspect there are countries with far greater potential for embarrassment on the Iraq chemical weapons than us.

All told, 52% of Iraq's international chemical weapon equipment was of German origin... Around 21% of Iraq’s international chemical weapon equipment was French...

...indeed, the worst thing I've been able to find was our sending biological samples to Iraq such as anthrax, West Nile virus and clostridium perfringens. Which is mind bogglingly stupid but I'm not certain any of those were used against the Kurds (though I would not doubt it).

None of which excuses us or is meant to pass the buck to our European and Middle eastern friends but the story is too often presented as though the USA just handed over every drop of chemicals Saddam ever used. The truth seems far from that (if there is evidence to the contrary please let me know).

As embarrassed as the Germans and French should be, George Bush led the cover-up to bury the truth.

Who Armed Iraq?
...the U.S.-led Security Council censored the entire dossier, deleting more than 100 names of companies and groups that profited from Iraq's crimes and aggression. The censorship came too late, however. The long list -- including names of large U.S. corporations -- Dupont, Hewlett-Packard, and Honeywell -- was leaked to a German daily, Die Tageszeitung. Despite the Security Council coverup, the truth came out....

Alcolac International, a Maryland company, transported thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor, to Iraq. A Tennessee manufacturer contributed large amounts of a chemical used to make sarin, a nerve gas implicated in Gulf War diseases....

The inspection process is spawning a host of questions about U.S. policy.

• Why aren't U.S. and European scientists, who invented and produced lethal materials for Saddam Hussein, subject to interrogations like their counterparts in Iraq?
• Are U.S. companies sending their deadly material to other dictators?
• Why are there no congressional hearings on the U.S. role in arms proliferation?
• And how many senators (like the voice of Connecticut's arms industry, Sen. Joe Lieberman) are taking contributions from the world's arms dealers?

And of course, related to the corruption of this administration, Dick Cheney took $73 million from Saddam Hussein for quadrupling his oil revenues when Hussein was publicly offering bounties after Gulf War I to the families of suicide bombers.

When someone commits a crime for which there is no recompense, what else can we do?

As long as my point about the selective application of the death penalty based on the ethnicity of the victim goes unrefuted, I have no reservation against repeating where it applies.

While blacks are the leading victims of murder, death rows are dominated by convicts who kill whites. While the burden to the families of white murder victims is too severe, I guess it's just too bad for the families of black murder victims that they're just shit out of luck.

As embarrassed as the Germans and French should be, George Bush led the cover-up to bury the truth.

the U.S.-led Security Council censored the entire dossier,

So when the UN does something one doesn't like it's suddenly the US led Security Council. And since Bush leads the US it's him doing the leading. This seems a bit slippery.

I've still seen nothing to support the contention that the US gave Saddam the chemical weapons used against the kurds--at best we were a small part of that, if we were any part at all. Which does not excuse it but it would behoove those who critisize us to give the whole picture, if they wish to be taken seriously.

The upside is that Hell just got a little more crowded. Given the assumption that the previous sentence is true, therefore Hell just got marginally more inconvenient for Saddam, Satan...
I defy anyone to find a downside in that argument. DEFY, I say!

Easy.

Remember the tag line from Romero's famous DAWN OF THE DEAD film? "When there is no more room in Hell, the dead will walk the Earth."

Maybe we should start to worry? ;-)

...the U.S.-led Security Council censored the entire dossier...

So when the UN does something one doesn't like it's suddenly the US led Security Council. And since Bush leads the US it's him doing the leading. This seems a bit slippery.

Why is it slippery to say the obvious?

When was the US chastised for something the UN went along with? What are you complaining about?

"All told, 52% of Iraq's international chemical weapon equipment was of German origin... Around 21% of Iraq’s international chemical weapon equipment was French..."

...indeed, the worst thing I've been able to find was our sending biological samples to Iraq...

...the story is too often presented as though the USA just handed over every drop of chemicals Saddam ever used. The truth seems far from that (if there is evidence to the contrary please let me know).

Alcolac International, a Maryland company, transported thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor, to Iraq. A Tennessee manufacturer contributed large amounts of a chemical used to make sarin, a nerve gas implicated in Gulf War diseases....

I've still seen nothing to support the contention that the US gave Saddam the chemical weapons used against the kurds...

Oooh, somehow giving chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein is worse than profiting from their sale. That's Totally Normal Psychology.™

"What are you going to do, put them in prison for life? I refer you to the case of the Texas Seven, where men that were in prison for life managed to escape and murder a policeman on Christmas Eve."
*************
SER: So, by this argument, you would support the death penalty only for those who might arguably do so again? That occasionally factors into sentencing but not always. I don't recall that being an issue in the Scott Peterson case, for example. The prosecutors basically stated that he needed to die because of the crime he committed. There was no convincing argument made that Peterson was so great a threat to the public that life in prison would endanger innocent lives. Frankly, if that was part of the process and burden of proof on those seeking the death penalty vs. life in prison, I imagine we would see far less people sentenced to death.

It is true that Alcolac International, a Maryland company, transported thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor, to Iraq.

Go to http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:99ppToBo4I4J:www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/iran/iran-chemical-1998.html+Alcolac+International+mustard+gas&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3&client=firefox-a
for a bit more detail. An interesting section:

In January 1989, a U.S. Customs Service investigation revealed that an Iranian diplomat posted in West Germany, Seyed Kharim Ali Sobhani, had brokered three shipments of thiodiglycol, a precursor of mustard gas and a controlled commodity, from the United States to Iran in 1987 and 1988 through a West German company. The Iranian agent had instructed the German firm Chemco GmbH to purchase the chemical from Alcolac International of Baltimore, and shipments were routed through third countries (30 tons through Greece in March 1987 and 60 tons through Singapore in June 1987) to conceal their final destinations.

The Customs Service intercepted a third Alcolac shipment of 120 tons in April 1988, substituted water for the chemicals, and tracked the shipment through Singapore and Pakistan to a Tehran firm M/S Ray Textile Industries, that U.S. officials said was a front company for chemical purchases. The responsible officer at Chemco GmbH was arrested and pleaded guilty to violating U.S. export law, but subsequently jumped bond and fled to West Germany, where he could not be extradited or prosecuted under German law. The West German government, under pressure from the United States, forced Tehran to withdraw the Iranian diplomat from its embassy in Bonn.

Alcolac pleaded guilty to a single count of violating U.S. export law for manipulation of documents by its export manager, Leslie Hinkelman, to conceal the fact that the 120-ton shipment of thiodiglycol was destined for Iran. It was later revealed that Alcolac exported four other shipments of thiodiglycol totaling more than 400 tons through Nu Kraft Mercantile Corporation of New York, which were ultimately diverted via Jordan to Iraq.

Hmmm...y'know, a person might, just might get the impression that instead of "The US giving Saddam chemical weapons" we have a US company breaking the law and using every trick in the book to hide this fact. One wonders why these details--which seem to me to be fairly important, wouldn't you agree, Mike?--were left out of the SFgate article. Lack of space, no doubt.

And perhaps there is reason to believe that the US government was totally aware of these crimes and actually behind it. Haven't seen it yet though.

Of course, if one is willing to ignore all logic one could pretend that any and all actions of any and all US companies are henceforth to be considered The Offical Government Policy Of These United States and go on from there.

It is true that Alcolac International, a Maryland company, transported thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor, to Iraq.

Go to h**p://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:99ppToBo4I4J:www.wisconsinproject.org/countries/iran/iran-chemical-1998.html+Alcolac+International+mustard+gas&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3&client=firefox-a
for a bit more detail. An interesting section:

In January 1989, a U.S. Customs Service investigation revealed that an Iranian diplomat posted in West Germany, Seyed Kharim Ali Sobhani, had brokered three shipments of thiodiglycol, a precursor of mustard gas and a controlled commodity, from the United States to Iran in 1987 and 1988 through a West German company. The Iranian agent had instructed the German firm Chemco GmbH to purchase the chemical from Alcolac International of Baltimore, and shipments were routed through third countries (30 tons through Greece in March 1987 and 60 tons through Singapore in June 1987) to conceal their final destinations.

The Customs Service intercepted a third Alcolac shipment of 120 tons in April 1988, substituted water for the chemicals, and tracked the shipment through Singapore and Pakistan to a Tehran firm M/S Ray Textile Industries, that U.S. officials said was a front company for chemical purchases. The responsible officer at Chemco GmbH was arrested and pleaded guilty to violating U.S. export law, but subsequently jumped bond and fled to West Germany, where he could not be extradited or prosecuted under German law. The West German government, under pressure from the United States, forced Tehran to withdraw the Iranian diplomat from its embassy in Bonn.

Alcolac pleaded guilty to a single count of violating U.S. export law for manipulation of documents by its export manager, Leslie Hinkelman, to conceal the fact that the 120-ton shipment of thiodiglycol was destined for Iran. It was later revealed that Alcolac exported four other shipments of thiodiglycol totaling more than 400 tons through Nu Kraft Mercantile Corporation of New York, which were ultimately diverted via Jordan to Iraq.

Hmmm...y'know, a person might, just might get the impression that instead of "The US giving Saddam chemical weapons" we have a US company breaking the law and using every trick in the book to hide this fact. One wonders why these details--which seem to me to be fairly important, wouldn't you agree, Mike?--were left out of the SFgate article. Lack of space, no doubt.

And perhaps there is reason to believe that the US government was totally aware of these crimes and actually behind it. Haven't seen it yet though.

Of course, if one is willing to ignore all logic one could pretend that any and all actions of any and all US companies are henceforth to be considered The Offical Government Policy Of These United States and go on from there.

The funny thing is that rolling from "Amazon.com was running a mad sale on Garman GPS devices" to the death of Saddam Hussein are inextricably linked and until we recognise this relationship we're forever condemned to repeat it. It's our love of cheap, bargain stuff, of irresponsible consumption that leads to these resource wars and thus toppling once favoured dictators. It's our greed, our need for junk we don't really need, is what keeps perpetuating these problems. Although collective responsibility is a blunt instrument we do, at some atomic level, share some of the blame for this chaos. I think Western hyper-consumption is incredibly dangerous and frankly, stupid.

Hmmm...y'know, a person might, just might get the impression that instead of "The US giving Saddam chemical weapons" we have a US company breaking the law and using every trick in the book to hide this fact. One wonders why these details--which seem to me to be fairly important, wouldn't you agree, Mike?--were left out of the SFgate article. Lack of space, no doubt.

The Alcolac bust? Clinton-era.

Sheltering Alcolac by censoring their mention from the Iraq Weapons Declaration? Bush-era.

"The US giving Saddam chemical weapons" and "any and all actions of any and all US companies are henceforth to be considered The Offical Government Policy Of These United States?" Strawmen.

Pitiful.

In January 1989, a U.S. Customs Service investigation revealed...

Oh, crap, I gave the Future™ an inaccuracy. W shelterd a company busted under his dad's watch.

Don't say I never gave you anything.

ok, just so I'm clear, we've gone from "The USA gave Saddam the chemicals used to kill the Kurds" to "GW Bush, using his svengali-like pwers to make the UN do whatever he wants, helped to hide the fact that a US company illegally sold chemicals to Iran and Iraq until they were caught."

Once again, the power of the web. Remember when we had to take people's word on things, trusting that they would have the integrity to include all the salient details?

Also, please in the future add the name of hans Blix to your list of evildoers--"UNSCOM had a practice of not revealing names of companies of suppliers of equipment to Iraq because they often had the possibility of getting information from these companies, and the best way to get these companies to talk to them was not to publish their names to start with," Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, told CNN. I smell cover-up!

(What was the vote in the security council on this? Considering how so many other countries were in this up to their eyeballs to a far greater degree than we were this might be an interesting detail...one Mike's source left out, allowing the careless reader to come away with the impression that it was the US that suppressed this report (though even THEY didn't go so far as to claim it was a GW Bush coverup))

So despite your best efforts, it would seem at this point--someone less interested in snark and more interested in facts may well come up with something to convince me otherwise--that we can lay to rest the old "The US supplied Iraq with those very same WMDs that Saddam was accused of using" chestnut.

Oh, crap, I gave the Future™ an inaccuracy. W shelterd a company busted under his dad's watch.

Don't say I never gave you anything.

Don't feel obligated to tell the truth on my account, Mike. It should be something you wish to do just because it's, you know, the right thing to do.

Bill,
I think there is a tendancy to conflate together the fact that Saddam used WMD in the late 80's and the fact that the US prefered Saddam to Hummeni in the Iran-Iraq conflict. So far you've focused on what chemicals and technology Iraq got from the west. But perhaps you could elaborate on the nature of the relationship between Saddam and the US during the Iran-Iraq war. I don't know much about it.

We stupidly sided with Saddam, which, given the fact that we had come close to war with Iran is understandable but was still a mistake. There is a penalty to be payed for supporting thugs and mass murderers, even if they may be temporarily on your side. It might be unavoidable, as it was with Stalin, but there will always be a price. Personally I don't think it was even close to worth it and that would have been the case even if Gulf wars 1 and 2 hadn't happened.

Those who now are making pilgrimages to Iran to be photoed with a smiling Ahmadinejad would do well to remember that. If the miserable little madman lives up to his ambitions...

BAGHDAD, Dec. 31, 2006 — The latest video of Saddam's execution, with a soundtrack that shows that his guards were taunting him up to the last moment before the lever was pulled and he fell to his death, has been burning through cyberspace in Iraq and across the Middle East.

It is not only the bad taste of mocking a man about to die that has been getting angry reactions here: The worst aspect is the sectarian nature of the insults.

The guards shout "Moqtada, Moqtada," as Saddam is reciting a prayer with the noose around his neck: They are referring to Moqtada al Sadr, the extremist Shiite cleric whose Mahdi Army is the most feared militia in Iraq, widely thought to operate death squads targeting Sunnis.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/IraqCoverage/story?id=2762610&page=1&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312

Beautiful.

"We stupidly sided with Saddam."

Do you know what was the nature of the support? Did he get money? Conventional weapons? Good oil deals?

The people who claim that the US supplied Iraq with WMD assume that that was part of the support Iraq received from the US du