According to Reuters and seemingly ever other new source in the World, US Major General William Caldwell said -
"Had we been physically in charge at that point we would have done things
differently"
What I have not been able to figure out is what exactly we would have been done differently?
- Would we have waited 15-20 years to allow every judicial body available review the case in effort to exhaust the entire Iraqi appeal process, like we do here?
- Would we have televised the hanging, and showed it as an example of what happens to bad guys, that try to push the US around, rather than go after some prison guard who took some pictures and video on his cellphone?
- Would we have used this opportunity to bring Shiites, Sunni's and Kurds together to work on a coalition government and rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure?
- Would we have now expected the Iraqi citizens to revel in our presence in their country?
If you know, or think you know, or can guess, or surmise what we would have done differently please let me know.
On this hanging note, I had a discussion with some of my friends on New Years Day about Capital Punishment and it got me thinking (which is never a good thing). First off, you cannot apply US laws or morals to the Saddam Hussein case. The only applicable parallels I can think of is with the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, or the Nazi war crimes after WWII. That is the only time I am aware of in modern times, when a head of state has been tried for crimes against its citizens. Secondly, the way Capital Punishment is (pardon the pun) executed today is not a deterrent to future crime. I have no problems with having a convicted criminal put to death, if that punishment is going to effectively stop the next person from committing the same crime.Currently, the time between doing the crime and paying the ultimate penalty is too long in this country. I understand that we have due process, every citizen is entitled to that under the constitution. I would never want to jeopardize someones rights to due process and I would never want to send the wrong person to their death, but there has to be a way to speed up due process, so there is a direct correlation between the crime and the punishment.
Right now, there is little or no awareness that one's criminal actions could result in capital punishment. If the thought of capital punishment were truly a deterrent to future crime, than I would actively support this sentence, but since it is not a deterrent, but rather just a further drain on our overtaxed judicial system, we should do away this practice altogether until we can find a way to make it a more effective in reducing major crimes.
4 comments:
Good post Jeff.
I think the whole Saddam thing is/was a sorry spectacle.
I'm sorry if it offends anyone but the whole Iraq thing has been nothing but a waste of human life and effort, 100's will be scarred for life, 10'000s of people the world over have been affected by this through loss of loved ones, or other related trauma. Where were the WMD's, the whole premis behind the UN resolutions? Its a scandal really, an invasion of a sovereign nation based on a premis that had no basis in fact, amazing!
It really is awful, shame on the lot of them, that whole political class that allowed this to happen. Pity on those poor people who have lost their lives, both military and civilian. They have died in the name of a lie.
As for Mr Hussein, sure, Saddam (by various accounts) wasn't a nice man, there's no argument there, but I'm just left asking myself whether the manner of his death really changes anything for the better, the answer I get, is no.
When you think about it, if anything its just going to get a whole lot worse by fuelling Sunni and Shiite hatred.
That second 'unofficial' video painted a picture of sectarian revenge, I didnt see a lot of justice or dignity, just a whole lot of hate and ugliness.
As for the question itself, I agree you guys would have done it differently all right but as you say it would have dragged out for 15 years or so.
I don't think CP is a deterrent at all. I can't ever be pro death pen, not by the hand of the state at least - Now otoh, cold bloodily kill someone I love, and I might well exact revenge by my own hand, but thats more a personal vengence thing.
My mum brought me up with the idea that 2 wrongs do not make a right.
And what is to say we weren't really in control of it? Saddam was put there in the first place by the good ol' U.S. of A. The Iraqi government (or lack thereof) is merely a puppet of the Bush administration.
The fact is, this was about revenge, not justice. I am not saying that Saddam should have or shouldn't have been executed. But we should call this what it is. This was about revenge -- revenge for his atrocities against the Shiites, revenge against whatever it was he did that made him an enemy from an ally, revenge for a supposed failed assassination attempt against the current president's father, and revenge against every other slight and offense between Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds.
Speaking of revenge, lets not forget about the patriarchal revenge, since I doubt the Bush family ever forgot that daddy 41 was unable to invade and dislodge Saddam in 1991.
Rob,
I could not agree with you more that this whole Iraq this is a sorry spectacle that was used by the neo-cons in the Bush administration to divert our attention away from that guy in the Pakistani mountains, who we still have not found. It is amazing how fast the American public has forgotten about the alleged WMD's, and has allowed that to swept under the carpet presumably never to be seen again.
Well it is amazing that the Dems, who seemed so weak then are now in control of Congress, and if they proceed with the investigations that they claim, then it will be interesting to see if the WMD and faulty intelligence surfaces again and becomes news that the mainstream media picks up again.
I am still not sure why (other than oil and money, no doubt really big reasons) we need Iraq in its current political geographic makeup. If it got broken into 3 autonomous regions or countries, and we were able to effectively deal with all 3, or 2 out of 3, wouldn't that be better than the situation we are in now.
Iraq was never a real country to begin with, it was just part of the Ottoman Empire. In the aftermath of WWI the British just kind of decided this was going to be a country, and the world has lived with it for the past 80 years. Why not correct an imperial wrong, oh right, because we are now the imperialistic power.
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