Feeling bad for Saddam Hussein
Okay, not really all that bad, but it does make me a little queasy thinking of Saddam Hussein being hanged (too many hyperlinks to think about) because I think he was singled out for punishment where others do the same thing he did with impunity.
I am opposed to the death penalty, even in the case of murderous, Joseph Stalin wannabe dictators. Even ones who gas their own people, oversee a totalitarian regime where dissent is silenced with the most macabre torture and murder you have ever read about.
But quite beyond that, there’s the whole issue of Saddam’s arbitrary treatment.
In labour relations land, if you can prove that you were punished for acts that others routinely performed with impunity, arbitrators will give you your job back, or reduce or rescind whatever discipline was imposed on you.
Saddam Hussein is not the only nasty dictator out there who presides over a regime that tortures and murders its opponents, etc etc.
Near as I can figure he’s being singled out unfairly because he had the hubris (or stupidity) to outstay his welcome on the US’s “strong man” guest list.
For sooth he was an obnoxious guest. That whole invading Kuwait thing turned out to be “not on” with the world’s hosts, in the end.
And the subsequent feistiness over the whole “what have you got in your suitcase Saddam? Is it WMD?” thing, well that went badly too.
In response, he acted badly. It was almost as if he wanted the sanctions that killed so many of his country’s people to continue, because he needed an enemy.
But that’s not why he was hanged. He was hanged for things that the Israeli army does every day. He was hanged for things that happen in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Colombia, Peru, Algeria, Sudan and any number of “friendly” states all the time.
It’s the old adage – the only crimes that don’t pay are the ones where you get caught.
I didn’t have any sympathy for Hussein until I read about his execution. I thought of him as a horrifying character. Now I think of him as a weak, old man who was killed by a massive thug who kicked him while he lay on the ground, helpless.
December 31st, 2006 at 7:28 am
Yes, the hanging was horrifying, but don’t let his old pathetic aging image sway us from remembering his murderous career, as he — like so many tyrants like Hitler, Stalin, Gengis Khan and Idi Amin — climbed over the dead bodies of many thousands he had slaughtered on his way up to the throne of megalomania. Did we want Iraqi justice, or American justice, if any justice was warranted? Perhaps, we may have been even more horrified had he been beheaded. Our Western sensibilities are so heightened, though, that could we have looked at this mess differently if he had been “euthanized” more humanely like, say, with a lethal injection? He was just another thug who deserved to die, if we are to judge criminals. We just don’t have enough intestinal fortitude to watch it. He knew the end had come, and every person, however evil or vile, sees their mortality before them and reacts differently. How will we act when we go, each to our own end, peacefully or not?
January 4th, 2007 at 3:53 pm
Err. Yes. I botched that one too. Not up on proper execution language use.
January 4th, 2007 at 10:21 am
Well, say what you will about how well hung Saddam was , but the fact is he was not well “hanged”. The Iraqis botched that one!