Obvious liberal blogger's reaction to the Saddam verdict #3,456,789
Britain is supposed to be morally and legally opposed to the death penalty, so why is Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett expressing her support for the psycho ex-dictator's imminent execution? Yes, the guy's guilty (and guilty of far more than he was tried for), but how does this mesh with the Foreign Office's own pronouncements on killing people convicted by courts of law - even courts less controversial than that trying Saddam?
Not to mention
- "The UK has ratified Protocol 13 of the ECHR, banning the use of the death penalty in all circumstances, including time of war."
- "In 1998, the FCO set up a Death Penalty Panel including expert academic, legal and NGO representatives. The Panel helps the Government draw up strategies towards the worldwide abolition of the death penalty."
"The international community has agreed that even the worst offenders at the Rwandan and Yugoslav war crimes tribunals cannot face the death penalty. Criminals must be brought to justice. But there are other means of doing this."And then, of course, there's the obvious dig about trials for Bush, Blair and the other "masterminds" (a misnomer if ever there was one) of the Coalition invasion and occupation, following Beckett's wonderful statement that
"Appalling crimes were committed by Saddam Hussein's regime. It is right that those accused of such crimes against the Iraqi people should face Iraqi justice."Was Saddam a supremely nasty, possibly actually evil bastard? No doubt about it. But - and again, entering utterly predictable liberal blogger territory here - if he's been sentenced to death for the killing of just 181 people, who's going to join him on the scaffold for the deaths of between 45,000 and 900,000 civilians since the start of the liberation process - between 250 and 4,970 times the number Saddam has been convicted of and sentenced to death for killing?
6 Comments:
Indeed, and one could furthermore put forward the argument on the inconsistency of abolishing and calling for the abolition of the death penalty, where those executed are at least allowed a day in court, and at the same time condoning the extra-judicial killing of Brazilians in the subway.
You really think the killing of the Brazilian at Stockwell can relate in any way to the death penalty that Saddam will serve in Iraq? That's pathetic.
And if so - perhaps there's a little hypocrisy in what NoseMonkey is saying... as in the below post he says that a policeman is just 'doing his job' by shooting-to-kill with the criminal in Kent, showing what seems to be support for the action; yet then condemns the Brits support of the Saddam verdict.
Generally I don't think the Death Penalty is a particularly great idea - but I have absolutely no trouble with Saddam Hussein ending his life that way. And of course, you liberal knobjockeys will delight in saying "oh but, Blair's a killer! Bush is a killer! Hang them!" and all that nonsense; but come on. At least look at the intentions; the West's invasion of Iraq was on good moral ground, it was for the good of the Iraqi people. People die in times of war; should Winston Churchill have been executed when it was found that not every single piece of his intelligence was spot on in WW2?.
Erm... The invasion of Iraq was "for the good of the Iraqi people"? What about those WMDs that we were told at the time was the reason for war?
We invaded for the good of the British and American people due to the supposed threat of hellfire and damnation raining down on us from Baghdad, surely? Benefits to the Iraqi people were a purely secondary potential benefit (one which has yet to be delivered) - because if we'd really cared about them we wouldn't have kept up with the sanctions and oil for food nonsense for the previous decade.
(As for the policeman in Kent - and please note that I didn't draw a parallel between de Menezes and Saddam, as I don't believe there is one - the previous post was saying no more and no less than that it was his job, as a member of an armed response unit, to take down a potentially dangerous suspect when faced with such a scenario. It was, however, deliberately phrased in such a way as to cause confusion as to my own views in a sadly failed attempt to prompt an interesting debate about whether demonising an individual officer - albeit anonymously - is really sensible, when it is surely procedure that is to blame.)
Nosemonkey
Was not one of the many reasons given for the iraq invasion was that sanctions were not working, after all at the time it was said that iraq was in such a dire state that nothing could be worse than sanctions and that it was hurting the wrong people and that we could never be sure that saddam had destroyed his WMDS + providing recruitment for al qaeda as many muslims were unhappy over this so another solution was needed
as for my own view, not entirely sure what should have been done probably sanctions was the better solution, what with the war simply making things worse as before the war saddam made sure iraq was safe by killing off all those people that were religious
just curious what solution would you have supported if you were against both sanctions and a war to end sanctions
I wasn't especially against the war, as it happens - I just thought the reasons given at the time were bollocks, and that the whole thing was bound to end up a mess. Had there been a method of removing Saddam less likely to cause widespread death and destruction, I'd have opted for that. Perhaps a single sniper's bullet, preferably well over a decade ago, could have done the job. As it is, we'll never know.
Surely that should be the people that killed or ordered the killing of the between 45,000 and 900,000 civilians? The Islamists. Though I know that that will prove a particually popular argument.
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