The fact that the United States didn't turn him over to the Iraqis until immediately before the execution leads me to believe that we certainly weren't convinced that Hussein wouldn't escape. Supposedly, even after we turned him over, we still had the CIA present at the execution. One of the biggest problems we have over there is we don't know who we can trust.
I feel absolutely no pity for him, but I'm not sure killing him was the smartest thing to do... especially on the first day of Eid.
josebach wrote:The fact that the United States didn't turn him over to the Iraqis until immediately before the execution leads me to believe that we certainly weren't convinced that Hussein wouldn't escape. Supposedly, even after we turned him over, we still had the CIA present at the execution. One of the biggest problems we have over there is we don't know who we can trust.
I feel absolutely no pity for him, but I'm not sure killing him was the smartest thing to do... especially on the first day of Eid.
That's why they did it so fast, they were trying to do it before dawn on the first day.
boojumsnark25 wrote:but this whole thing is about how I don't believe in the death penalty for anyone.
perhaps you are simply a better (more decent) human being than myself and some others, but I wager that if any of us were flies on the wall for the rape, torture, and murder his special police forces carried out, or if any of us got to see the gassing of the Kurd or the mass graves of women and children our US soldiers discovered, you'd change your mind.
Someone that sick and sadistic no longer qualifies as a human being. I guess the real difference is that some of us believe there are those few people who are purely evil, no gray areas in between, pure evil, and are of the belief that evil has no place in this world. Yes, this line of thinking could be led down a slippery, but its not like Sadaam was even close to borderline, he had few if any threats to himself, and killed for pleasure, and committed the worst crime a human being could in genocide. Don't forget this is also the man who in the 90's was more than willing to use prisoners, civilian prisoners too, as human shields.
Maybe God would be tolerant enough to grant mercy and not kill him, but it is out of the respect for the lives he so brutally ended that I feel we need to guarantee he never harms another soul, and killing him is the only way to be certain.
josebach wrote:The fact that the United States didn't turn him over to the Iraqis until immediately before the execution leads me to believe that we certainly weren't convinced that Hussein wouldn't escape.
There was also a concern that if Hussein was being guarded by the Iraqis he would be abused or killed before the trial was over. I have not watched the tape of his execution but my understanding was that Hussein was taunted prior to the execution. There was no love lost between Hussein and many of the Iraqis that would have been guarding him.
Art Vandelay wrote:Does anyone know why he wasn't tried under international law as a War Criminal at the Hague?
I'm just guessing, but since he was a citizen of Iraq who broke Iraqi laws, and was found in Iraq when at least a provisional Iraqi government and judiciary had already been set up, the federal laws of Iraq took precedence.
I would guess an analogous situation would be if an American citizen was guilty of both war crimes and US federal Crimes. Would he be extradited to the Hague for trial? I doubt it.
Art Vandelay wrote:Does anyone know why he wasn't tried under international law as a War Criminal at the Hague?
I'm just guessing, but since he was a citizen of Iraq who broke Iraqi laws, and was found in Iraq when at least a provisional Iraqi government and judiciary had already been set up, the federal laws of Iraq took precedence.
I would guess an analogous situation would be if an American citizen was guilty of both war crimes and US federal Crimes. Would he be extradited to the Hague for trial? I doubt it.
I thought that as well, but it just seems like genocide committed by a dictator is generally considered a war crime. And it's not as if he was arrested by Iraqi police, he was captured by US troops. I really have no idea why it was handled the way it was, but the cynic in me can't shake the old adage "dead men can't talk."
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by josebach » Tue Jan 02, 2007 9:07 am 
