Even apart from the moral issue – the death penalty is simply wrong – there are many pragmatic reasons who sentencing Saddam Hussein to death by hanging is wrong. I happen to think the death penalty is morally wrong; I don’t think you have any right to take another life in cold blood, and killing in self defence or during war is subject to limits. Surprisingly, for someone who teaches military history, I believe war is wrong because I believe that the use of force to compel others to do what you want is wrong. I happen to think that getting away from the death penalty is one key indicator of civilisation, so I have big questions about the moral compass of societies where the death penalty appears to fall more heavily on people who are poor and black rather than rich and white; or where young women might be stoned to death for adultery. The death penalty cheapens human life, and undermines the right to life.
Leaving morality aside thorough, no sooner was the verdict handed down than the appeals began. Any reasonably competent defence team will certainly string out Hussein’s appeals for many years, keeping his case in the public eye and allowing his few followers to argue that he might yet get off and be ‘innocent’. Of course, he would also have appealed against life imprisonment, but that never has the dramatic quality of the appeals of a man on Death Row. Throughout this process, his followers will try to turn western values against us and whip up sympathy for him as he awaits the noose in his narrow cell.
All this might well be moot anyway, since the current President of Iraq is, apparently, opposed to the death penalty and might refuse to sign the order when it comes to his desk if he is still there when it gets that far. Once the appeal process is exhausted and it comes down to signing on the dotted line to carry out the execution, there is a good chance that whoever is sitting in the Iraqi President’s office will have the moral courage to refuse to sign, and then it will be a major political mess. It is hard enough to elect a president in Iraq, and hard to keep him alive once elected, so it is not wise to create situations where he might have to resign on principle.
If it wasn’t for the sentence, Hussein would be an irrelevance already – Iraqi politics has moved on past him, and being hauled pathetically out of a hole in the ground where he was hiding really was the end of his career. During his years in power, thousands of people were tortured and executed on whim, and if Iraq wants to move beyond that, then sending him to prison for life would certainly have been a good way to signal a clear break with the past. That noose they want to put round his neck will hang with them for a long time.
Leave a Reply