As we lick our chops, collectively salivating as Hussein is led to the gallows, American bloodlust ranks up there with a diminishing number of countries in Asia and Africa that impose capital punishment, yet we are unremarkably unparalleled in the Developed, Western, Industrialized world.
By the time this reaches print, Saddam Hussein will be dead. And I have no doubts that if his public hanging had been offered for American viewing, stations would have scrambled to air the execution. Under the pretext of being "newsworthy," and therefore, worth witnessing, the event would have covered our home screens with death images not unlike those once viewed publicly in the Gladiator-like arenas.
But surely, watching a "live death" would be far more civilized from the privacy and comfort of our own home theaters. However, the American penchant for "reality based television" and violence is the perfect coupling for record-breaking ratings during a televised execution.
The very anticipation of a noose around Saddam Hussein's neck has been getting good airtime, but not the non-stop coverage that television executives would hope for due to the obligatory coverage of one of the many Gerald Ford funerals.
This is not to make light of Hussein's crimes against humanity. That is a given. Rather, this is a look at a diminishing number of countries that still impose capital punishment - and the irony of whose company we keep.
According to Wikipedia and Amnesty International, there are approximately 70 countries that "retain the death penalty in both law and practice." Note that this distinguishes said countries from others that have the death penalty by law, or on the books, but no longer practice or enforce capital punishment.
The following breakdown is only a partial list of countries that either support or do not suppport the death penalty.
Of the nations described as Western, Developed or Industrialized, very few impose capital punishment. Nearly all of the European continent opposes the death penalty with the exception of Belarus. Latvia has the death penalty by law, but only imposes such sentences on "exceptional crimes." Turkey and Russia, too, list it by law, but it is not used in practice.
Canada does not impose capital punishment nor does Mexico. Japan is one of the few industrialized nations that continues to impose such a penalty.
Most interestingly, is the following "short list" of countries in relation to the United States and much of our continued rhetoric regarding nations that we have described as barbaric or part of the "Axis of Evil."
Along with the United States in supporting and imposing capital punishment are: Iraq, Iran and North Korea - the latter three all "Axis of Evil" designees. And for good measure, Syria is keeping company with us as well.
A few of the other Middle Eastern, Asian or African countries that impose the death penalty include: Afghanistan, China, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Uzbekistan and Yemen.
I do not make judgments on any of the above countries, but rather, am pointing out what I see as the blatant hypocrisy of the United States in our loose canon of condemnations, insults, judgments and deadly labels that we have placed on many nations whose company we keep on the list of those who "violate human rights" - a quote and description often used by international Human Rights agencies and watchdogs.
A complete list of countries and how they stand on the issue of capital punishment can be found at Wikipedia, and more detailed information and up to date listings of countries that are abolishing capital punishment, can be found at Amnesty International.
A native Californian, Jan Baumgartner is a freelance writer currently living in Maine. Her background includes scriptwriting, comedy writing for the Northern California Emmy Awards, and travel writing for The New York Times. She has worked as a grant writer for the non-profit sector in the fields of academia, AIDS, and wildlife conservation and anti-poaching for NGO's in the U.S. and Africa. Her articles and essays have appeared in numerous online and print publications in the U.S. and internationally, including the NYT, Bangor Daily News, SCOOP New Zealand, Wolf Moon Journal, Media for Freedom Nepal, and Banderas News in Mexico. She's finishing a memoir about her husband's death from ALS and how travels in Africa became one of her greatest sources of inspiration and hope. She is a Managing Editor for OpEdNews.
I keep reminding everyone of Gandhi's statement that violence will vanquish violence when darkness can dispell the darkness. In other words, it isn't going to happen. Violence will only "surge".
So what has transpired now with Saddam's hanging is the equivalent of the three fateful witches in MacBeth throwing another bat's wing or spider into their witches' brew, so as to make it all the more potent. Our benighted President, acting out his pathetic version of MacBeth, can't wait to drink from their black cauldron, mistaking it for the Holy Grail.
by
Mac McKinney (42 articles, 60 quicklinks, 142 diaries, 966 comments)
on Saturday, December 30, 2006 at 1:39:21 AM
But is anybody kidded? The timing of Saddam's sentencing to try to aid Bush in his mid-term elections, and now his hasty hanging to prevent him spilling his bibful about the complicity of America in the all the lousy dealings in the ME and its aid for him when he was thought to be an ally to their intentions - Come ON! - Is anybody kidded?
This is just another wink and nod in the sad and dirty business that 'world politics' has become - Just the cynical use of events for the faces and pockets of the few.
The planet is still the marvellous place for the opportunity of life that it has always been, but the sooner we rid the world of this shower of sub-human ordure called politicians and their manipulators, the better.
Then let's get to it.
by
amazin (31 articles, 0 quicklinks, 10 diaries, 377 comments)
on Saturday, December 30, 2006 at 2:10:49 AM
Commenting on the question of execution, for any and all crimes, no matter how horrible, my answer is, no, not ever.
Aside form that, however, is the question of why Saddam was not tried at the Hague, instead of in a war zone, like Milosovich, for example. Certainly, trying him in Iraq, with an insurgency, civil war and sectarian death squads everywhere, put peoples' lives at risk; judges, attorneys, as well as witnesses.
There was no good, legal reason for Saddam's trial to take place in Iraq.
But there was a reason, and we all know what the reason was and is. The Bush administration had to have the trial where it could be carefully controlled by its puppet government in "Massa Bush's Oil Plantation."
To have tried Saddam at the World Court, which the Bushites refuse to recognize and threaten any nation that does, would have left the door open for evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity by them as well, in this incarnation and the last one.
Since Reagan is dead and Poppy Bush appears to be having a major breakdown of some kind, let's focus only on the current incarnation of authoritarian jackasses and sociopaths who run this country. One of the charges against Saddam was, of course, the mother of all war crimes, the unnecessary, illegal invasion of another sovereign nation, Kuwait. Did The Bush administration not commit the same crime when invading Iraq?
As we all know, the number one war crime is the one from which all others flow.
Saddam gassed the Kurds, we are told. Where did he get the gas and did we not support him, against Iran, to whom we were selling TOW missiles, even after we knew that he had gassed the Kurds? So, is the Reagan/Bush administration not complicit in Saddam's crimes against humanity?
My opinion is this: Various members of the Reagan and Bush One administrations and the current Bush administration should be in the dock at the World Court, where Saddam should have been tried and, no, none of them should be executed, even if they are found guilty.
They should not, however, be allowed to be free to commit other horrendous crimes, nor should any of them, no matter how small a part they may have played in these crimes, be allowed to be anywhere near the halls of power again, like so many of the Iran/Contra criminals are and have been in the current administration.
by
wintefire6 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 86 comments)
on Saturday, December 30, 2006 at 5:06:16 AM
Bush and company should have been right up next to him. Think of lives that lost in the illegal war. The failure in Katira. The many people that are dying daily because they have no health care.
by
Gregory A Reece (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 55 comments)
on Saturday, December 30, 2006 at 8:15:41 AM
Two wrongs don't make a right, however, this seems to be the general rule of most lands. I totally disagree with the death penalty, no matter what kind of monster you turn out to be. We are not the ones chosen to impose a death penalty. If there is a God, and I am sure there is something, nameless it shall go since I have never seen him or her in my life time. I would dare to say he or she is the only one allowed to bring forth such punishment. I would also, blame this force for all our anger, animosity and blood thirsty behavior since we are made from his or her idolized image.
If we sent to death one blood thirsty dictator, then shall we kill them all? Lets see Cuba's Castro, the infamous Korean leader, heck I am sure we can write a list a mile long, to include our very own President whose hands are blood filled as well. I have never understood our justice system and the way we justify certain things in life. It is vicious cycle, one I do not like.
I believe if we continue this endless killing streak, we will never find peace. We are one blood hungry world, and it is time to stop the madness.
[[vid1]]
by
Mark Angelo Cummings (4 articles, 1 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 54 comments)
on Saturday, December 30, 2006 at 8:16:23 AM
He paid the ultimate price for playing around with the good ole USA.
Anyone remember just before the first invasion of Iraq when our CIA trumped up ally Hussein sat down with the US Ambassador to his country and inquired what would happen if he sent peacekeepers to Kuwait?
He was assured that America would look the other way.
He took the bait so that the first CIA director to become president could show the world that he was not a wimp.
And the beat goes on...
by
Arye Michael Bender (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1 comments)
on Saturday, December 30, 2006 at 10:34:14 AM
