Though I don’t subscribe to the concept of “evil”, this man is, shall we say, “very very bad”.
I do not subscribe to capital punishment.
So what should be done with him? I do not think he should be tried exclusively by the US. Should he be tried by the new Iraqi regime? By the International War Crimes tribunal?
Personally I favour the Rudolf Hess version of punishment. I maintain that Hess’s miserable existence was a far greater anti-Nazi statement to the world than any of the Nuremberg executions. Let Saddam be tried for his crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison. Do not reduce the West to his level.
Iraqis will try him and decide if the death penalty is appropriate. For political reasons we really need the Iraqis to be satisfied with whatever happens. I think they’d probably lynch Bremer if Saddam was turned over to the Hague.
They do have a functioning judiciary, but I think the US is going to wait until Iraqis have an elected government to try him. In the meantime, he will be held and questioned.
According to early reports, he’s already singing like a canary.
…I mean, it’s not like there’s any doubt that he’s commited crimes. It’s not like he’s just a poor slum dweller who’d just be convicted because he couldn’t afford a good lawyer to get him off.
And besides, do you know how much it would cost to keep him alive for the rest of his life? Probably tens of thousands per year…and it’s not like he could be rehabilitated, or that he’d be doing anything productive.* It’d just be wasted money, money that would have been better used to help the Iraqi people.
Send him back to Iblis, sez I.
*Maybe if you chained him to a wheel in a gristmill, and made him turn it in place till he died. That might work. But ONLY if you could whip him, too.
It looks like the trial will be in Iraq, under Iraqi Islamic law.
Which is exactly how it should be, his crimes were far more against the Iraqi people that anyone else. To move him anywhere else would be the action of a conquering, occupying force rather than a liberator.
Informed opinion reckons that the death penalty is pretty much a certainty.
As far as I know, Saddam has done nothing meriting a parking ticket – let alone death - to the US or the UK, so I’d probably think it’s not for the winners in this war of aggression to determine appropriate out punishment(s).
How about a re-constituted (by Iraqi’s) Iraq decide and we keep the hell out of it ?
The tribunal wouldn’t have juridiction for the overwhelming majority of the crimes commited by Saddam Hussein since :
They were committed before the treaty (recently) went in effect and only crimes commited after this date can be prosecuted
2)Most crimes were committed on Iraki soil by Iraki citizens upon other Iraki citizens, and Irak isn’t a signatory of the treaty.
So, except in the odd case of a war crime commited recently and involving a victim who would hapen to be citizen of a signatory country (say a british soldier during the war, a US soldier wouldn’t do since the US isn’t a signatory, either), the International Court would be out of the picture. And even in this odd case, the court could try the criminal only if Irak itself choose not to prosecute him.
While I’ve always supported capital punishment in theory, I’ve had hesitancy about it in practice due to the vagaries of huumans involved in it’s administration. In this case, I strongly suspect that there’s ample evidence and ample scrutiny of the process available to insure the justness of the implementation of capital punishment.
London - you are kidding right? Or you don’t believe the accounts of the 400K graves that have already been found? Of course…Saddam is a veritable Angel!
Well hell, why should we prosecute any criminals, ever, then? It’s not like they’ve commited crimes against most of the population, let alone the D.A.'s office.
phl, I think you should re-read the comment of LC.
And by the way: He is absolutely right.
As the International War Tribunal:
Since the US doesn’t even recognize it and since the US holds Hussein in custody - be it on the territory of the sovereing nation they invaded and hold occupied - this possibility it is out of the picutre on forehand even when it could be seen as one.
Speaking for myself and since I’m utterly sceptical about everything the present US government invents, I’m of course utterly curious how the US is going to defend it whenever they would have the mad idea that they could deny the Iraqi people their right to organize the hearings and trial.
Such ideas already being represented in the comment of member Ranchot
emphasis mine.
In the supposition that this member is not an Iraqy citizen, how can the Colonial Idea be better expressed?
There are more reasons why a trial in an international tribunal won’t fly.
No death sentance. I mean we are talking about Pres. Bush here. Do you think anything other than death will satisfy him? After all, this IS the man who tried to kill his dad.
Saddam could embarrass him. He might go into detail on all the support he got from Bush the elder before Gulf War I. This would all play out leading up to the elections. It is in Bush the younger’s best interests to keep all this as much under the rug as possible. It might be tricky to suppress this even in an Iraqi trial, but the odds are much better.
Bush isn’t going to turn Saddam over to be judged by people who didn’t support the war.
I think Bush would have been much happier if Saddam had not been taken alive. Knowing the Bush habit of planning for the best case scenario only, he may not have made any detailed provisions for this. I think the Iraqis will try and execute him.
