Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death! What are yout thoughts?

Question

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15567363/

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's High Tribunal on Sunday found Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to hang for the 1982 killing of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail. The visibly shaken former leader shouted "God is great!"

Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of the former Revolutionary Court, were sentenced to join Saddam on the gallows for the Dujail killings after an unsuccessful assassination attempt during a Saddam visit to the city 35 miles north of Baghdad.

The death sentences automatically go to a nine-judge appeals panel which has unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days.

Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi told reporters that the Anfal trial now in progress for Saddam and others alleged role in gassing and killing Kurds would continue while the appeals process is under

way. But if the appellate judges uphold the death sentence, the Anfal proceedings and other cases would be halted and Saddam hanged.

Al-Moussawi said Saddam would be hanged if the sentence were upheld, despite his demand that he be shot by a firing squad.

A court official told The Associated Press that the appeals process was likely to take three to four weeks once the formal paperwork was submitted.

Clashes, celebrations
Clashes immediately broke out in north Baghdad's heavily Sunni Azamiyah district where police were battling men with machine guns. At least seven mortar shells slammed to earth around the Abu Hanifa mosque, the holiest Sunni shrine in the capital. There was no immediate word on casualties.

Celebratory gunfire rang out elsewhere in Baghdad, and the people in Sadr City, the capital's Shiite slum, celebrated in the streets, calling out "Where are you Saddam? We want to fight you."

Breathing heavily as he ran along the streets, 35-year-old Abu Sinan said, "This is an

Answer 1

Saddam Hussein did some terrible things, but I don't support the death penalty under any circumstances. Let's not forget that the U.S. government was friendly with him up until the day he invaded Kuwait. Furthermore, he is to be hanged, which is rather draconian.

Answer 2

I don't want to sound rude or offensive or anything like that, but it sort of seems like a tragic end for Saddam. Though I don't believe murdering and torture is ethical or right, I do believe that Iraq may have been headed in a semi-right way, even if it wasn't towards democracy. I think that it is ironic that we can quickly criticize and ostracize people today for such heinous crimes to a very high degree, but yet we don't do the same for people in the past. The majority of great nations did not become powerful by being weak and passive, no they had to go out, wage wars and do more "bad stuff." The Juliues Ceasar didn't gain power and land just by sitting in Rome, and Genghis Khan surely didn't become a historical figure by riding on his horse alone. Although I don't want to justify Saddam's actions, nations just don't become something by doing nothing. There are many more heinous people in the past who have done even more terrible things, but no one seems to share any sympathy for those. The Aztecs were basically completely wiped out by the Spanish conquistadors, but who is crying for them? I will admit that Saddam did not treat his people and others with kind and respect, and we really cannot make a true distinction between what we in the western society deem fair and those living under Saddam. There is a Chinese proverb that a frog living in a well knows nothing about the world outside the well because the frog can't even fathom about something it has never experienced itself before. So gender roles may seem to put emphasis on males and less power for women, its their society and that's the way they have survived on, unfair as it may appear, if you were to take the frog outside the well, it wouldn't know what to do, same for the gender roles, the very balance and fabirc of their society becomes untangled and becomes chaotic. I digressed too much, but point is, nations need to undergo severe changes in order to become powerful, and Saddam was helping Iraq, in more of a selfish way, though who in power isn't selfish?

Answer 3

i'm only undertaking appropriate to the destiny repercusssions on different loonies like Saddam. what form of message does this deliver to Kim Jong ll or the Iranian President? Do you think of they are going to be scared or understanding that they would be killed in any case, they'll combat to the dying. Kim Jong ll is familiar with that he would be placed to dying if seize, he probable might launch each and all of the nukes North Korea has in the previous giving up, ditto for the Iranian government. once you thinkg approximately that, you could comprehend there's no longer lots to rejoice.

Answer 4

Saddam has done some bad things. The trouble is, alot of those deeds were commited with support from the west in some form or other. So how can we now find him guilty of crimes against humanity without implicating ourselves ?

Answer 5

This man's punishment is deserved. Justice requires he meet the kind of end prescribed by this sentence, based on the heinous crimes against humanity he has committed.
I'd like to address the gentleman (I think) who asked has it been worth the American lives it's taken to wage this campaign in Iraq. The answer is a thousand times, YES!
The military is not a "good will club", it is a warring machine. It is not the boy scouts or the peace corps, it is a fighting force that is there to carry out MILITARY objectives. Do you question the goal of freeing a people from dictatorship? Do you think that freeing a people from slavery is a more "just" cause perhaps? I ask because a couple hundred years ago my ancestors were enslaved in America. About 1-2 million of them, as I understand. Over 600,000 thousand men gave their lives to free them. So where the lives lost during the Civil War worth a few slaves??? The principle is the same.

Answer 6

I am totally surprise at some of these answers about giving Saddam a break. Saddam has murdered hundreds of thousands of people or had them murdered on his orders. But thats ok because he had help from the west. And yet after all of the people that die unde his rulership some of you people still think that he should not die for his crimes. I Just wonder how you would feel if it was your family that he murdered. As a matter of fact many of those soldiers that are being killed in Iraq are dead because of some of his standing orders. Also why did Saddam believe that killing children was ok since it was in self defense. I guess that some of you people believe that you would be better off living under Hitler and Stalin. Then to see them murdered for their action against humanity............. What has happen to the word called JUSTICE............................................................

Answer 7

Its simple "listen to what I say very carefully and write this day down" He will file for appeal he will go back to trial some time after the Presedential Elections.He will then be "Freed"..You see for the people who really think that he will be sent to Death. Understand this, he is no ordinary man This is Saddam Hussein and Yes he does have connections with some the most powerful people in the U.S. and Other Areas. People like this dont die their too rich and most importantly, they hold too many secrets that can bring other important people down.

Answer 8

James Baker is Saddam's lawyer. Death sentences mean nothing to the the Baker law firm.

You might remember Baker had a 12,000 page brief prepared for the Supreme Court in less than 24 hours after Bush v Gore.

Go big Red Go

Answer 9

If Bush's father had gone into Baghdad in 1991 during the Gulf War, he could have been eliminated then. Instead, it was left up to his war-mongering, bloodthirsty son to send troops into Iraq to capture Hussein and see that he finally went on trial.

Was it worth the 3000+ American lives (so far) for all this? I'm sure Bush is sitting there in Washington or Crawford going "heh, heh, heh, got him, now he's gonna hang." But was it really worth it Dubya?

Make no mistake - the penalty is deserved - although I can think of a better punishment: he should be turned loose in a sealed enclosure with 100 of the meanest-looking, foulest-smelling Kurds that can be found, all of them armed with rocks and he should be stoned to death as in Biblical times. That way, he would be made to suffer just as he made the families of those he killed suffer. Hanging is too fast.

But, the question remains - was it worth all the American lives and the grief and heartache Bush's little war has caused over here?

Answer 10

hes a very old, deranged man, what good would killing him do now, surely iraq has seen enough death and destruction, why not set a better example and make him rot in prison forgotten and unknown silenced forever.