Death as a Penalty
For those of you who have not heard yet (and are living in Siberia apparently), Saddam Hussein and two defendants has just been sentenced to death for committing crimes again humanity.
BAGHDAD — Saddam Hussein, who oversaw the murder of thousands of Iraqis during 24 years as their president, was convicted of committing crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a Shiite Muslim town. Iraq’s former leader was sentenced to die by hanging.
By Rick Jervis, USA TODAY
This, as I am sure, is definitely going to revive the debate about whether the death penalty is right, whether a country, or a global institution, should be allowed to kill someone for their crimes.
Personally, I am torn. I am against, and have always been against, the death penalty. I can see the point. Someone has killed 148 people (and that’s a very low number considering the amount of people who have really died because of Hussein) he deserves to burn in hell, or where ever, for his crimes. But, I just have never been able to reconcile killing someone for killing someone. I’m currently writing a paper on Saddam and Iraq, so I understand where the hatred and desire for retribution comes from, but he is still a man, a human–albeit an insane one–and to take his life is murder, in my opinion. I may publish the paper, if I think that my grade is good enough lol, but it’s going to be around 9 or 10 pages, so that would be pretty long.
It is too hypocritical for me. “But we are killing him for the right reasons.” When is death ever right? When is it ever the right thing to take someones life? In my opinion never. People die in wars, and I understand that soldiers have to kill or be killed, I accept that, and I am only against wars in general. I am against the concept that you have to shoot to get your point across.
People kill in self defense. This too I understand, and accept. Once again, if someone is about to shoot you, you should do what is necessary to protect yourself. However, the mitigating factors are never right, therefore the whole circumstance can never be right.
To kill someone who, essentially, has no more power over you, who can be isolated for the rest of his natural life and spend that life paying for his crimes, that too me is just wrong. You can always try to justify it, but the fundamental truth will always be there.
Personally, I am disturbed at the thought that people can dance in the street rejoicing the death of a human being (or any being I guess). Have we become so desensitized that we can no longer feel compassion for the loss of life. I do not want Saddam Hussein to die. Do I think he is a bastard? Yes. Do I think he deserves to have a horrible, painful, drawn-out death? Yes. Do I think he should be killed by our government? No. It is not our, or our institutions, place to take someones life.
I don’t think that I articulated my opinions very well in this, but that’s how I feel, and I’m sticking to it.
19 Comments
When the evidence are so obvious in Saddam’s case, the person deserves the death penalty. No wait, they deserve to be tortured for what they have done…
:hehe:
I’m a firm believe that you shouldn’t always get what you deserve.
I can see from both sides on why he should or should not be put to death. Personally, I believe that if he is not, someone will find a way to kill him in his prison cell if he got sentenced to life in prison. I consider it this way. If he killed that many people, and would come back and do it again, then let the system take care of it. I did not kill him and if he is sentenced to death, it is not on my conscience. Yes, that is the desensitzed Romanesque way, a trait that can be called cruel, but I think there needs to be some type of closure. So, if he dies by hanging or dies rotting in prison, I will not care other than he see by the law that he is guilty.
Mr. Hussein won’t get the death penalty, because now it’s election time in the states. When the election is over, the penalty will be changed to life sentence.
The death penalty is really nothing more than a version of “an eye for an eye”. I personally am a believer of “two wrongs don’t make a right”. Executing Saddam won’t make the pain of the Iraqi people disappear.
I’m against the death penalty though I do feel they deserve some sort of punishment.
Hey! I know I heard that too. I’m kinda torn as well. But anyhow I mean I kind understand what they are saying but I’m not saying I completely agree with them. I mean I think what he did to people in that country is unhuman you know he should get something for the things he did. but I never thought they would “hang” someone I thought that was over with.
I personally feel that Saddam shouldn’t be let off so easily as the death pentalty.
I personally don’t really like the death penalty. Some people deserve way more than that for a penalty.
Well, you do pose an argument as old as the art of killing, I guess. I believe, on the contrary, that we have not bcome so desensitized to killing a being for killing another. It does seem a tad hypocritical, but I dont percieve it as such, I percieve it as eliminating an oppressive man from killing more civilians is cold blood. How can one view someone with compassion when he has apathetically murdered a good number of people, and knowing that if he were able, he would be inclined to kill again. I believe that people know that its wrong, but see this as the only option to stop a murderer.
But, would it not be “eliminating an oppressive man from killing more civilians is cold blood” if he is locked up and punished for the rest of his natural life.
I can always be compassionate for a murdered life.
Death wouldn’t be a punishment to Saddam and it really shouldn’t ever be used as a punishment. Killing him for killing all those others wouldn’t make things right. I say let him rot in jail for the rest of his life.
Honestly, I’m sort of having 2nd thought about Death Penalty. I don’t know if I should be against it or agree on it. But Saddam has done more than enough damage and if I were to be asked, I’d say go ahead, torture the guy. He deserves it. Or maybe that’s not even enough for what he has done, but somehow, it made me think again. A lot of people have died already and that’s enough. And are we given the right to kill someone because as you’ve said, he killed someone? Why not make him suffer in prison for the rest of his life instead? Killing someone won’t bring back the life of those people he killed and certainly, it doesn’t make things right.
I agree with you completely Pat. Sure he deserves to die, but he deserves to suffer more.
And, killing someone for killing someone else is just ridiculous.
I never even mentioned the numerous accounts where DNA evidence has shown that the person did not commit the crime, and he was convicted &/or killed for something he did not do.
I hate to sound naive, but I didn’t know that they still hung people. I thought it was all lethal injection and such.
I’m sort of iffy on the death penalty. I’d hate to see someone who people thought was guilty, but was really innocent have to die for something that they did not do, but yet for someone who has obviously killed so many people to get to live out the rest of their life when they unhesitatingly took the lives of other people seems a bit unfair to me also. Yes, they they can live out the rest of their life in jail and feel ‘guilty’ about it, but these people are sociopaths, for the most part. They have no empathy or remorse. How are they even supposed to begin feel guilty?
Well, this is in Iraq (where he was tried) so I guess they do still hang people there.
This is the mistake people are making, he was tried by the Iraqi government, not the U.S. government.
I never said they would feel guilt, but he’d surely be upset if he had an “unpleasant” time in prison for the rest of his life.
Well, I don’t really think that the dealth penalty is going to help mucho now… I mean, hanging him is not bring those people he killed back.
(First, sorry I’m commenting all over the place, but I just found your site and like your topics!)
We disucssed this in class a few weeks ago, and I’ll repeat what I said then: I think it’d be much more effective to let him rot away in a cell. That’d be the former dictator with no dignity, not honour, nothing left - then he wouldn’t become a martyr-esque person for those who still support him, something he now very well may become. It’d be so much more effective to show that “see, we know what he did - this is how he ended up. And, we’re not like him”.
I’d say that a megalomaniac like a former dictator probably is would suffer more from being powerless than hung.
Hi,
I was reading through your comments and the comments of others and wondered whether folk might be interested in taking a look at my poem called ‘The Death Penalty.’My web address is http://www.poetrywithamission.co.nz
Regards,
Lance Landall