Should Saddam Hussein be Executed?

tba · 02-07-2004 2:38pm #1

Originally posted by BBC News
US President George W Bush has said that the captured former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein should pay the "ultimate penalty" for his crimes.

So the topic is simple, if found guilty, should Saddam Hussein be given the death penalty?

I think that he shouldn't.

quarryman · 02-07-2004 2:44pm

i disagree.

kill him.

ravenhead · 02-07-2004 2:45pm

Originally posted by tba
So the topic is simple, if found guilty, should Saddam Hussein be given the death penalty?

I think that he shouldn't.

In a word - YES! Take form him what he has taken from thousands - why have him locked away in some prison with the chance that some nut case is going to leave him out! No way - the Iraqi people deserve justice for what he has done.

simu · 02-07-2004 2:45pm

No. Let him spend the rest of his life contemplating his past in prison if found guilty.

ruck-it · 02-07-2004 2:46pm

Nope it's completely pointless to kill the man. It doesn't act as a deterrant, does anyone really think despot's like Robert Mugabe are going to go, oh I better cop on, or I'll be put to death like Saddam.

The death penalty should never be used in my opinion, since quite simply two wrongs don't make a right.

tba · 02-07-2004 2:47pm

I agree with Simu and ruck-it, not for the reasons given but because I dont believe anyone has the right to kill another.

ruck-it · 02-07-2004 2:47pm

Incidentally I'm delighted to see that the people who want him killed have pronounced him guilty before the trial.

quarryman · 02-07-2004 2:48pm

Originally posted by ruck-it
Incidentally I'm delighted to see that the people who want him killed have pronounced him guilty before the trial.

excuse me?

Lemming · 02-07-2004 2:49pm

Executing Hussein will quite possibly the worst in a long line of bad mistakes made throughout the current climate in the ME. It'll martyr him to many in the ME, and more importantly (and rather ironically) will provide Al Queada with a new propoganda tool for recruiting fresh members, despite teh fact that AQ & Hussein were complete polar opposites in the ME.

You can't silence a martyr, and they can't voice their misgivings about being used by group x,y, or z .....

murt · 02-07-2004 2:52pm

I am totally opposed to the death penalty.
If you feel Sadam Hussein did not have the right to put any of his victims to death, why would you feel that someone else (anyone - not just gwb) should have the right or the power to put him to death?

ravenhead · 02-07-2004 2:53pm

Originally posted by ruck-it
Incidentally I'm delighted to see that the people who want him killed have pronounced him guilty before the trial.

Why... is there a question of his innocence or something>????????????????

Praetorian · 02-07-2004 2:55pm

Stone him to death (I'd throw the first stone if they let me), or let him rot in prison.

tba · 02-07-2004 2:55pm

Originally posted by ravenhead
Why... is there a question of his innocence or something>????????????????

Thats not the kind of society we live in, innocent untill proven guilty in a court of law.

Matfinn · 02-07-2004 3:00pm

put him in jail for the rest of his life, the death penalty just isnt right

ravenhead · 02-07-2004 3:02pm

Originally posted by tba
Thats not the kind of society we live in, innocent untill proven guilty in a court of law.

Yeah right.... did you say the same thing about ted bundy?????

simu · 02-07-2004 3:07pm

Originally posted by ravenhead
Yeah right.... did you say the same thing about ted bundy?????

Yeah, he also had to be tried.

Mac daddy · 02-07-2004 3:08pm

Originally posted by tba
Thats not the kind of society we live in, innocent untill proven guilty in a court of law.

Pff fool you really think that he is inocent gobsh*te-

Let a bunch of hungry pitbulls at his balls he can live with the shame in prison will being ripped a new as$hole

lodgepole · 02-07-2004 3:14pm

Originally posted by Mac daddy
Pff fool you really think that he is inocent gobsh*te-

It's not a question of whether you think he's guilty or innocent, he still has to be tried and convicted in a court of law. That's just the way it is, and the way it has to be.

And no, I don't think he should be killed for his crimes. I (and the EU) do not agree with the death penalty in any case.

ravenhead · 02-07-2004 3:25pm

Originally posted by Lodgepole
It's not a question of whether you think he's guilty or innocent, he still has to be tried and convicted in a court of law. That's just the way it is, and the way it has to be.

And no, I don't think he should be killed for his crimes. I (and the EU) do not agree with the death penalty in any case.

How anyone can justify not sentencing him to death I will never know ..... that man is pure evil ...... death is even too good for him.....

Sarky · 02-07-2004 3:29pm

Killing him is a blind mistake. Why make a martyr for every middle eastern terrorist group? If you can't see that it will make things worse, you're not thinking. And it would be the perfect way for adherants to the old regime to demonstrate that the new guys are essentially just as bad.

Life imprisonment is nastier, in any case. He would get to spend the rest of his days alone, knowing that there's no hope of release.

Lemming · 02-07-2004 3:30pm

Originally posted by ravenhead
How anyone can justify not sentencing him to death I will never know ..... that man is pure evil ...... death is even too good for him.....

ravenhead .... I shall requote what I wrote before as it was obviously missed by yourself:

Executing Hussein will quite possibly the worst in a long line of bad mistakes made throughout the current climate in the ME. It'll martyr him to many in the ME, and more importantly (and rather ironically) will provide Al Queada with a new propoganda tool for recruiting fresh members, despite teh fact that AQ & Hussein were complete polar opposites in the ME.

You can't silence a martyr, and they can't voice their misgivings about being used by group x,y, or z .....

So what I'm saying is: Hussein should not be executed, and not on "I don't like the death-penalty" grounds either. I'm talking political grounds that stretch at least 10 years into the future from now. Martyring him will, at the very MINIMUM, give Al-Queada and any other fundamentalist religious group an extended leash of life. At the minimum ......

lodgepole · 02-07-2004 3:30pm

Originally posted by ravenhead
How anyone can justify not sentencing him to death I will never know ..... that man is pure evil ...... death is even too good for him.....

Nobody is pure evil, it's a bull**** term. But I agree with the sentiment to a point, he deserves very severe punishment for many of his past actions. But I don't believe in the death penalty, nor does my country, nor does the EU.

ravenhead · 02-07-2004 3:32pm

Originally posted by Sarky
Killing him is a blind mistake. Why make a martyr for every middle eastern terrorist group? If you can't see that it will make things worse, you're not thinking.

how is it going to make things worse? the iraqi people have suffered so much because of this man - it is only a small group of people that actually followed him - the rest were terrified into do it - now if it was Bin Laden I would agree with you but this man deserve to have the people's justice taken out on him - just think od all the lives that he has ruined & that he will continue to ruin ... HE WILL BE FREED IF HE IS IMPRISONED - it's only a matter of time & that is too high a risk to take.

Capt'n Midnight · 02-07-2004 3:34pm

Reminds me of the old cowboy films
"we'll give you a fair trial and then we'll hang you !"

Do we want more martyrs ?

Is anyone worried about the Judge being the son of the person who gave the CIA the misleading intelligence that the prompted the invasion in the first place ??

BTW: both the Korean and Vietnam wars had a death toll of 4 or 5 million and during the Iran-Iraq war in which over a million died there were 36 countries selling arms to both sides. The point being that most of the big wars since WWII have been small confilcts that exploded due to the availability of arms , whereas without the arms they would have fizzled out or remained deadly but not genocidal. Guns don't kill people - Bullets do.

Sarky · 02-07-2004 3:35pm

What's to stop Bin Laden being freed if imprisoned? He at least has a lot more supporters than the "small amount" under Saddam. If Saddam deserves death, why does Bin Laden get off? He's at least as nasty...

Lemming · 02-07-2004 3:35pm

Originally posted by ravenhead
how is it going to make things worse? the iraqi people have suffered so much because of this man - it is only a small group of people that actually followed him - the rest were terrified into do it - now if it was Bin Laden I would agree with you but this man deserve to have the people's justice taken out on him - just think od all the lives that he has ruined & that he will continue to ruin ... HE WILL BE FREED IF HE IS IMPRISONED - it's only a matter of time & that is too high a risk to take.

Because those "few" people will use his death as excuse to fan the flames of hatred. Why do you think that most of the ME has been very hostile towards the US & the UK carrying out the invasion? Where do you think all the resistance in Iraq is springing from? You can't have a protracted campaign of resistance without support. And that support is coming from somewhere - that somewhere being indigenous Iraqis.

However secular Hussein was, he was an Arab. There's somethign to be said for pride unfortunately, and these people take face rather seriously.

tba · 02-07-2004 3:36pm

I just dont see how killing him will fix the crimes that he is being charged with.

Nala · 02-07-2004 3:38pm

Just torture him for the rest of his life.

Lemming · 02-07-2004 3:41pm

Originally posted by neev
Just torture him for the rest of his life.

best thing to do with the likes of Hussein, Bin Laden, and Milosevic, etc. is to simply lock them up & ignore them. They all suffer from vastly inflated egos and you'll do more wounding by showing them that they are actually quite insignificant and powerless, instead of giving them "special treatment" constantly, and in some perverse way allowing them think that you believe they have information of worth still to give, ergo important.

BEAT · 02-07-2004 3:43pm

Originally posted by Lemming
Executing Hussein will quite possibly the worst in a long line of bad mistakes made throughout the current climate in the ME. It'll martyr him to many in the ME, and more importantly (and rather ironically) will provide Al Queada with a new propoganda tool for recruiting fresh members, despite teh fact that AQ & Hussein were complete polar opposites in the ME.

You can't silence a martyr, and they can't voice their misgivings about being used by group x,y, or z .....

As much as he may deserve to go straight to hell I have to agree with lemming here, and Sarky below.
I do not agree with the "against death penalty sayers" I do agree with the politically sound reason's for not killing him though

Lemming · 02-07-2004 3:49pm

Originally posted by BEAT
As much as he may deserve to go straight to hell I have to agree with lemming here, and Sarky below.
I do not agree with the "against death penalty sayers" I do agree with the politically sound reason's for not killing him though

I must say that I disagree with the death penalty anyway as I find it to be too lazy and too easy a path to take. Just that this time I'm not arguing on that belief and rather on far more pragmatic and realistic politicial ground.

<humour>
Besides, if he's really "pure evil" then there must *really* be a god, and therefore he's going to hell anyway - so what's the rush. Let him sweat!

</humour>

K2 · 02-07-2004 3:50pm

Killing him is letting him off too easily, let the git rot in jail for every day he has left in his miserable life.

Sarky · 02-07-2004 3:52pm

Originally posted by Lemming

<humour>
Besides, if he's really "pure evil" then there must *really* be a god, and therefore he's going to hell anyway - so what's the rush. Let him sweat!
</humour>

Exactly. You don't kill that many people without building up some mental barriers. Keep him alive until they start crumbling. You never know, in a decade or so they might then be able to broadcast him on telly apologising for everything. It probably wouldn't make any victims feel better but it would certainly be a spanner in the works of whatever terrorists will be around then.

tba · 02-07-2004 3:52pm

I can certainly see the political ramifacations of killing him, the current climate in the Middle East is dangerous enough as it is without adding 'fuel to the fire'.

However even if he had no impact on the state of affairs in the region, I would still say no to killing him.

Orion · 02-07-2004 3:55pm

Originally posted by Lodgepole
It's not a question of whether you think he's guilty or innocent, he still has to be tried and convicted in a court of law. That's just the way it is, and the way it has to be.

Not just tried. It must be a fair trial. The US are preaching that law and order must prevail in Iraq. In order to do this they must lead by example. Saddam must be allowed access to his lawyers which he hasn't been so far. And the trial must follow international standards for evidence and witnesses.

Above all, it is not enough for the trial to be fair - it must be seen to be fair. This means that the US military cannot censor news coverage of the trial as they did yesterday.

As for the original question - I'm opposed to the death penalty in all circumstances so my answer is NO.

ravenhead · 02-07-2004 3:57pm

Originally posted by Lemming
ravenhead .... I shall requote what I wrote before as it was obviously missed by yourself:

So what I'm saying is: Hussein should not be executed, and not on "I don't like the death-penalty" grounds either. I'm talking political grounds that stretch at least 10 years into the future from now. Martyring him will, at the very MINIMUM, give Al-Queada and any other fundamentalist religious group an extended leash of life. At the minimum ......

Lemming I understand your point & to a degree I agree with you but in a country like iraq, when for the forseeable future there is not going to be a strong political leader in the country & power is going to move from person to person, I really believe that to Saddam in prison, where he can be released at the whim of the next leader, is just so much a risk to take. if he gets out you can be gauranteed that Bin laden will be his next best friend & god help us all then!!!
Ok so dont kill him ... but get him the hell out of iraq - out of iraqi custody - give him to NATO or the UN - just make sure he will never see the light of day again....

Sarky · 02-07-2004 4:00pm

I dunno, there are a lot of psychological tortures you can muck around with by letting someone see the light of day and then takig it from them...

dangerman · 02-07-2004 4:02pm

killing people is bad.

he should be tried in an international court.

Then, when (if - lol) found guilty, sentenced to lifetime imprisonment.

Sarky · 02-07-2004 4:05pm

If the trial really is fair, what do you think the repercussions of Saddam spilling all about US support in the past might be?

Lemming · 02-07-2004 4:12pm

Originally posted by ravenhead
Lemming I understand your point & to a degree I agree with you but in a country like iraq, when for the forseeable future there is not going to be a strong political leader in the country & power is going to move from person to person, I really believe that to Saddam in prison, where he can be released at the whim of the next leader, is just so much a risk to take.

Killing him is an even bigger risk, and quite frankly painfully obvious what will result. So you want him killed on the off-chance that he gets released, as opposed to the about-gauruanteed fallout of him being executed?

And anyway, he's being tried in Iraq. That does not necessarily mean that he will automatically be imprisoned in Iraq if so sentenced.

if he gets out you can be gauranteed that Bin laden will be his next best friend & god help us all then!!!

Actually I could lay odds on that that WOULDN'T happen. There's the small matter of Bin Laden (and Al-Queada) despising Hussein as an infidel because of his secular attitude.

tba · 02-07-2004 4:13pm

Originally posted by ravenhead
give him to NATO or the UN

That would be a step backwards for Iraq, they have to prove he can tried fairly in the country.

However

Originally posted by Iraqi justice minister Malik Dohan al-Hassan
The death penalty is suspended in Iraq but with the return of sovereignty, nothing obliges us to maintain this suspension. We want to reinstitute it for very specific cases

fragile · 02-07-2004 4:18pm

Shouldn't this decision be for the soverign Iraqi people to decide and not NATO or the UN?

Jimi-Spandex · 02-07-2004 4:19pm

There is no way he should get the death penalty. It is simply not an effective deterrant. Also the possibility of martyrdom is not appealing in the least bit.

The people who would generally be against the death penalty then decide 'this ****er should burn' whenever they come across a criminal who disgusts them really piss me off. You can apply double standards when it suits you. You are either pro or anti. MAKE YOUR MIND UP.

Saddam should also get a fair trial by an independant and objective judiciary. He should be allowed access to his legal team and entitled to defend himself.

As for the possibility that he could be released in the future, by some democratically elected leader? WFT? Why would you release someone who would try to replace you?

ravenhead · 02-07-2004 4:29pm

Originally posted by fragile
Shouldn't this decision be for the soverign Iraqi people to decide and not NATO or the UN?

Yes of course it should be - but he should not be imprised in Iraq if he doesn't get the death penalty .... it's far too risky

Orion · 02-07-2004 4:30pm

Originally posted by Sarky
If the trial really is fair, what do you think the repercussions of Saddam spilling all about US support in the past might be?

It's not as if they're secret. Everyone knows about him and Reagan in the 80s anyway. Even if Saddam is silenced (or censored) it'll come out eventually anyway.

ravenhead · 02-07-2004 4:32pm

Originally posted by Macros42
It's not as if they're secret. Everyone knows about him and Reagan in the 80s anyway. Even if Saddam is silenced (or censored) it'll come out eventually anyway.

Everyone already knows that the US is responcible for amry Saddamm in the first place - but when it was going on it was In America's interest to do so .. let some other country do our dirty work!!! Little did they know what they would create!

Orion · 02-07-2004 4:48pm

Originally posted by ravenhead
Little did they know what they would create!

When will they learn? El Salvador, Chile, Afghanistan, Nicaragua ... the list goes on.

ravenhead · 02-07-2004 4:52pm

Originally posted by Macros42
When will they learn? El Salvador, Chile, Afghanistan, Nicaragua ... the list goes on.

Very true - if the yanks would stop trying to run the world there wouldn't be this kind of thing going on... But i have to say Bush has to be the worst thing that has happened to the US in decades!

Stephen · 02-07-2004 5:15pm

If he somehow gets re-elected I will have lost the last shred of respect I have for America.

The Real B-man · 03-07-2004 12:21am

Originally posted by Sarky
Killing him is a blind mistake. Why make a martyr for every middle eastern terrorist group? If you can't see that it will make things worse, you're not thinking. And it would be the perfect way for adherants to the old regime to demonstrate that the new guys are essentially just as bad.

Life imprisonment is nastier, in any case. He would get to spend the rest of his days alone, knowing that there's no hope of release.

well said i totally agree if hes killed be ready for more 9/11's

keu · 03-07-2004 1:51am

How anyone can justify not sentencing him to death I will never know ..... that man is pure evil ...... death is even too good for him.....

.....I'm sure Saddam said the same thing before launching an attack on kuwaities...and all the rest of the people that were slaughtered during his regime.
and if for no other reason, this is why we shouldn't allow ourselves to fall into the same category by comitting the same act in principle.

Should Saddam Hussein be Executed?

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