The Execution of Saddam Hussein
The administration's attitude toward the execution of Saddam Hussein is that it was perfectly acceptable for a lynching to take place because it all happened under Iraqi law, and whether we find capital punishment morally repugnant ought not to enter in to the equation. It's all part of this "sovereignty" bit by the architects of the disaster in Iraq.Even if we ignore the the fact that the current Iraqi law was written under US occupation, rendering Iraqi lawmakers subject to US authority, the execution cannot be excused by explaining that "that's how they do things there."
When China imprisons dissidents for writing nasty things on the Internet about the Hu Jintao, or Saudi Arabia prevents women from driving cars, or Afghan warlords stone women to death for showing an ankle, do we pass it off as "that's how they do things there"?
Even liberals and moderates have expressed a pro-execution point of view, because, well, Saddam was a Bad Guy. And I don't deny that he was, but this execution wasn't about seeking retribution for the tens of thousands of Iraqi lives lost under his regime. If it were, he would not have been tried first for the lesser crime of the murder of 148 Shiites in Dujail; he would have been tried for the massacre of several thousand Kurds.
And why not try him for those crimes? Because Donald Rumsfeld might have to testify about that little handshake in 1983, when he sold chemical weapons to Hussein? Because George H.W. Bush might be called to testify about what he and other Reagan administration officials were doing?
posted by Cypher @ 7:36 PM
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