Dec 30 2006
SADDAM EXECUTED – How should we react?
They’re quick at executions over there aren’t they? There’s people in America who’ve been on death row since 1987 and still have no idea when their time is up. I think the speed of this whole judicial process and execution has taken me by surprise, and probably a few others too. Watching the news on television last night, I saw Iraqi people who were living in Britain expressing cynicism at the whole prospect of Saddam Hussein even being executed at all. ‘You know what these trials are like’ was the general feeling – especially since we saw Milosevic die before he could be brought to justice for his crimes.
You see, I’m familiar with a justice system where even the simplest of procedures take forever to get done, and yet Saddam didn’t even really have time to complain about the verdict.
Am I complaining about how quickly it all passed? No, as long as the proper judicial process had been carried through to the highest standard then I am surprised at the rate at which it was done but not concerned. What I am concerned about is the whole nature of the death penalty.
I don’t doubt that Saddam Hussein was guilty of the crime’s he committed, and I don’t mean that lightly, we’re not talking about car-jacking here – this is about women and children brutally killed. This is where the situation becomes difficult. Being against the death penalty as a matter of conscience, I would much rather have seen him serve the rest of his life in prison.
But we must exercise our right to be anti-capital punishment with a degree of sensitivity to the victims in Iraq. If Hussein had murdered my wife and children, I would that I would be writing a very different article now. That is the difficulty with the death penalty, it is within our right to condemn it but we must not overlook the hurt of the victims’ families. The only way we move forward from this situation now, is to accept that the death penalty is a part of the Iraqi justice system, and Saddam was a mass murder, and therefore regardless of our personal views on his punishment, justice was done.
What now for Iraq? The majority of the Iraqi people will be glad to see the back of Saddam, since they were oppressed by his own Sunni minority, a state of dictatorship now being readdressed in the hope we can form some kind of unified country from this mess. We’re all profoundly disturbed by the terrible violence seen in Iraq on a daily basis, let’s hope Saddam’s death marks a new beginning and a fresh direction for Iraq.
