an opinion piece
saddam has been executed.
i watched on sky news as they showed every single minute of it up until they put the noose over his head.
i cannot understand it. i am a chronic fence sitter - i swing many ways in an argument because i find a lot of points valid. i understand why china wants taiwan and i understand why taiwan wants to be its own state. i understand the basis of 'fundamentalism' and i understand anti 'terrorist' movements. i DO NOT in any manner or form understand or advocate the killing of another human being. i dont care what your reason is or what your excuse is. there is nothing that makes it right (accidents or self defense i suppose have their own case specifics)
[Thomas and i just had a conversation about fence sitting. he said 'do you think you are really a fence sitter?' and i said 'well, on a lot of things yes but i have my own topics that i'd fight for tooth and nail' ... to clarify ... by fence sitting i mean that i think i'm swayed sometimes not to abandon my own convictions but to 'modify' them in a way i hope depicts growth...?
tom wants to say something - except when it comes to legalising prostitution, where Sarah and I sit on opposite sides of the... 'Ho Wall'.. (haha)... (flip Ma'am is HOT - that we DO agree on)... she is against legalising prostitution, and I am for it, and we just cannot seem to agree on anything no matter how hard we RAH RAH RAH at each other about it.]
ANYWAY and so when you kill someone in order to punish them for killing someone, all you do is promote a sick cycle! how can you begin to account for your own killing of someone sinply in abhorrence of murder? it doesn't ring true in my own ears. and whilst i know everyone views it differently, the argument that seems to abound against me is 'if someone did something awful to a family member of mine then i'd want them to face the highest punishement available.' well... personally, in my case, there are people who i hold accountable for some awful things in my own life but i would never ever use that as an excuse for killing them back. there are better alternatives. but that is just me and my family bands me about for being too much of a 'humanitarian' whatever THAT means... i certainly dont take it as an insult.
saddam was executed. and that says something. it says something different to different people but to me it speaks volumes about the world we live in. (and the role of the media - making money and a sort of entertainment around death) and i am saddened by it.
posted by sarah @ 3:33 AM
10 Comments:
Your last paragraph sums it up completely - I'm amazed how few people have said "why show that on TV?" or "giving him the death penalty doesn't change anything, except pissing off Sunnis even more".
Hey Se
I totally hear you. I'm also greatly saddened by the way that the world thinks that somehow killing another person will restore things and that the media gets to feed off it like they do. I really wish that I could change the way the world works sometimes...
That and invent an intelegence pill to give to all the stupid people in the world *cough-bush-cough*
Happy New Year!
Well I still remember my discussion with you about this at the MnB a few months back, and I guess you know my opinion on this Sarah ;)
Saddam was the man who ordered the death of many innocent women, children and opponents to his government. He gassed his own people, he executed his own cabinet at random and he beat up puppies (well I assume so anyway :p).
We may debate about whether or not a murderer or rapist should be executed, but an individual like Saddam does not, in my opinion, deserve to live out the rest of his days in the relative comfort of his jail cell. I know it's not nice, and it's probably not the most comfortable solution, but some things in this world, namely tyrants like Saddam, should be executed for the simple reason that it provides some modicum of justice to those directly affected by his actions.
It sounds incredibly small of me to say that someone should be executed simply to make others 'feel better', but in this day and age, liberal society tends to forget that some things should not be treated with a humanitarian edge. Certain aspects of our lives in this world require a touch of the extreme.
Needless to say my eyes are very dry over Saddam's hanging :p
About the media thing. I'm not about to defend them, but showing images of his execution was necessary to convince the sunnis and shiites in Iraq and in the Middle East (perhaps the world), that Saddam REALLY had been executed. They did the same with Zarqawi, Saddam's sons, Jonas Savimbi, Che Guevara and many other despots, terrorists and generally nasty people. If you want to quell a resistance group who fight in the name of their leader, killing their leader and removing any hope they may have of liberating them, or in Saddam's case, restoring the B'aath party to its former glory.
Still. I'm a cynical old trout so what do I know :D
like i said ... everyone has the right to their own opinion on this subject ... more so than a multitude of other subjects, but in my capacity as a scholar of genocide and as a pansy (is it my hormones or something? i'm seriously wet eyed over a LOT of things recently) the killing of innocents is (once again) not something i condone ... i'm putting a few good years towards stopping it as much as i can
but still ... the killing of innocents, the killings of the judged ... its all killing
;) happy times innit?
Hey! If there was world peace we'd be out of a career choice! :D
i'm ambivalent about this all. I don't have many strong feelings about his death because I do believe Saddam was a thug, and I do believe that the world is a slightly better place without him.
nevertheless, i do agree with you that it isn't our place as fellow sinning human beings to play God and kill him. fate has a way of dealing with everyone, and we should just let it be.
albeit let it be in a dull and boring jail.
the thing that pisses me off the most about the whole thing is that it's all a bunch of victor's justice - and really, if the so-called 'good people' of the world are going to get rid of him, why don't they get rid of every other thug that roam this world?
Saddam is actually, and correct me if I'm wrong here, the first dictator to actually be brought to justice by the world (read: America and friends). Milosovich was going to be the first, but then he went and had a stroke (coincidence?) and ruined that.
The world doesn't know what's good for it ( I can feel Sarah rolling her eyes right now), and sometime down the line, Saddam's death will be an important full stop in the history of dictatorships that the modern world has suffered.
i whole heartedly agree miss richmond. whole heartedly.
Thanks for articulating lots of my thoughts about this.
Tess,
With this whole Suddam hanging, i definitely have an opinion too.
Firstly, i disagree with the death penalty, because killing someone for their unjust actions has further repurcussions than that person themselves, it impacts on the lives of many people. In the case of Suddam, who was not without followers, the acts of revenge that may take place for his public execution must be thought about. In the case of everyday people who commit crimes, their families and friends are suffering all the more from their death.
I believe in rehabilitation. Between going for jail for life and death penalty, i'm all for jail.
Secondly, i think suddam's public execution and excessive media coverage of it goes against all Human rights and even though he was awful, he still deserved some dignity and respect in his death.
I don't agree in one for one. So even though he was behind the death of many people and the lack of dignity associated with their deaths, i don't believe it gives anyone else the power to do it back to him - even "the world" at large.
Marx
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