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With Saddam Hussein’s execution, comes an end to an era. For many Iraqis, they had grown up and “adored” Saddam, and now they witness that some sort of justice has been served with the conviction and execution of the former leader. We do not often witness the death of such despots. We have seen brutal dictators like Milosevic and Pinochet die of natural causes and never come to the end of the justice process (not that the culmination of the justice process is execution).
I am not a supporter of capital punishment (by the way, neither is the current president of Iraq–Talabani), but there are certain situations that come up that challenge my ethics, and this is one of them. I am sure that for many people (mostly Iraqis and Iranians and not Americans), there is a sense of satisfaction to see this man finally pay with his life for his crimes against humanity.
The trial against Saddam was pretty much a sham–not because it was done unfairly, but because we all knew what the end result would be. The evidence against Saddam is overwhelming. So while Bush hailed the trial as “the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime”, most people knew that the trial did not have any sort of premise of “innocent until proven guilty.”
Geopolitically, it made sense to have Saddam in power. Morally, it was not. Sure he committed crimes against humanity, but will there ever be an account for the affects of the American-led war in Iraq that has cost the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people?
What is more important is to pray and focus on the future of Iraq, believing God for reconciliation when all evidence suggests otherwise. Today marks the end of an era, and an opportunity to hope for a better future. May God do a new thing in Iraq!
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Thanks for your thoughts. This is such a complex issue. I imagine most people in the West see the execution as a verdict and referendum against all of Saddam’s crimes. But I do wonder about how the Kurds or Sunnis (or Iranians or Kuwaitis) will feel since the crimes committed against their people never fully saw their day in court. I wonder if they will feel like justice has been done for their respective cases.
Like you, I am against the death penalty, and like you, this issue is one that challenges my ethics. Perhaps there is no easy answer to such an abhorrent evil. I will say that I do not believe the execution is Christ’s answer.
There are all kinds of different angles one could take on this. I agree in that I am against the death penalty. I have yet to be convinced of any circumstance where capital punishment is necessary. Killing Saddam Hussein does not bring back any of the people he killed.
It’s also kind of hard to claim the moral high ground on this when we use the same reasoning as Saddam did, that is, protecting national interests.
What I have not heard discussed through all of this is the US support for Saddam before, during, and after he committed many of these crimes against humanity. What responsibility does the US bear for all of this? People seem to forget that Iraq was a long time ally of the US and a recipient of much US foreign aid.
Reconciliation. Enough said.