Quote:
Originally Posted by il Padrino Ute
No, the newspapers don't need to tell me that they are terrorists. Their behavior and actions over the years tell me they are terrorists.
I challenge you to tell the families of any or all of their victims that they didn't get a fair trial.
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I know that this is a death penalty thread, but since it has gooten twisted into a little Iraq, I have got to quibble with the application of the death penalty of Saddam and co.
Whether e deserved it or not Saddam's execution is almost certainly a bad thing, especially now. The way in which it was carried out, the expediency, and the attendant circumstances all serve to undermine the claims of the Maliki government to legitimacy in the respect that it comes off as a sectarian lynching rather than the sober administration of justice one might expect from a mature judicial process.
This only serves to reinforce the notion of the Sunni minority that a new Iraq, where political and judicial processes serve primarily as a means of pushing a political agenda and reinforcing the sanctity of the regime. The wider spread that this perception is the less likely Sunni's or even Kurds are likely to buy into the democratic processes and institutions that must be erected post haste in order for us to truly say mission accomplished.
To me, the stoogeish interpretation of the death penalty by the Iraqi's is illustrative of the difficulties in application that make it unpalatable from a practical point of view, whatever a person's moral views on the sanctity of all human life. The administration is of the penalty is arbitrary, and when looking at the statistics of the application of the death penalty it is hard to escape the conclusion that it is applied without regard to fairness, and that the institutions charged with its governance do not function in equality.