Should Saddam be "burned"?

[Darnoc]

He may be executed, the possibility is even quite great. But I personally am against death penalty in any case, human beings just don't have the right to take the life of another human being, even when the other human being did this.

 

Of course we can always bring the argument of "threat towards society". OK, I accept that argument, but only when it is followed by the following sentence: "Therefore we have to execute Bush & Co., we have to execute not only Saddam but also every other dictator around the globe (including Bush's good friend, the king of Saudi Arabia); only then will we have peace".

 

There is a sentence in the bible which applies to this situation "Before telling your brother that he has a splitter in his eye, remove the bar in your own eye." Meaning the following: "Before telling someone what he has done wrong, look at yourself first."

 

And applied to the present situation: "Before accusing the former head of government of another country, please look first at the momentary government of your own country. When this problem has been solved, you can go and help others."

 

That is why I am stopping now making jugdments about the Bush or Saddam. I will tell you now about some guys we have in Switzerland, like Christoph Blocher, a conservative turkey (even when some think that now as he is sitting in the executive council, he can't do as much harm as before) and the whole government which we have now, of whom I think that it doesn't really represent our whole country (mostly conservatives and only one woman...). But you aren't interested in Swiss politics, am I right? So, I stop now and wish you good luck to all Americans in solving their problem with their own government.

[surian]

tyjet3, do a google search on the cost of capital punishment. You'll get many pages with the same information. Or, you could go to the ACLU's website. They're a pretty reputable source for research into the death penalty, although they are against the death penalty they still have a great amount of information.

 

To answer your question about why these states still keep it as an option; it's because either 1, people don't know or 2. people don't care or 3. they feel that vengance is worth the money. Vengance is not justice, and capital punishment is not justice in the sence that our judicial system is founded in this country. We have a system of re-hablilitation, not execution. If someone is deemed unfit for re-entry into society, if if his crime is so horrendous that he is never to be released then he is imprisoned without parole. People like capital punishment because they feel that they have to kill these murderers in order to achive justice.

 

This is actually one of the reasons that I despise G.W. Bush so much. His state (Texas) executed an obsene amount of people while he was governer and he was a huge supporter of this practice. I would also point out that there is strong evidence to show that some of the people executed (not only in texas but all over) have, in fact, been innocent of their crime.

[Zmid]

I've had a thought - you know what I think the worst punishment for Saddam is? A very specialised kind of 'freedom'. He is released from prison, but he is not allowed to leave Iraq. He is also closely monitored and not allowed contact with people outside Iraq, and any moves to put himself back in power, by force or otherwise, are blocked. He is also protected from any attempts to kill him.

 

In short, he is forced to live as an ordinary Iraqi, surrounded by people who hate him, and in the full knowledge he will never again be in any great position of power.