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Man to hang in 21st century: Margaret Beckett offers to pull lever
I don't think there's much of a debate to be had about whether Saddam Hussein was a bad man or not. From Halabja to the Kuwaiti oilfields, he's wrought destruction on his own people and his neighbours, not to mention the environment. Yes, he should be put on trial. But should he be executed for his crimes? I don't think so. Lock him up, take away his liberty, remove him from the life he once enjoyed, but don't hang him. What good will that do? It makes the society that hangs him no better than the dictator being hung. I've never been keen on an eye for an eye. Anyway, so what if I'm against the death penalty. That's just my personal opinion, and I'm bloody glad this country abolished it 40 years ago. What worries me is that politicians in this country seem happy to endorse Saddam Hussein's execution, while remaining against capital punishment. How does that work?
George Bush hailed the Saddam verdict as "an important achievement in the path to a free and just and unified society." Well, he would. Thirty-eight out of 50 states in America still have the death penalty, with 60 people being executed in 2005, and in Texas alone, 378 since 1976 (good work, fellas, keep 'em coming), so why would he suddenly become squeamish about killing a man? Tony Blair, also a Christian, dodged the question at at press briefing. He was asked repeatedly by Adam Boulton of Sky News about whether he approved of Saddam being executed. He declined to answer. "So you're opposed to his execution?" pressed Mr Boulton. The Blair temper snapped. "Adam, excuse me, that's enough. I will express myself in my own words, if you don't mind." He had already stated that the government is "against the death penalty, whether it's Saddam or anybody else," but wriggled out of condemning it, saying, "What I think is important about this is to recognise that this trial of Saddam, which has been handled by the Iraqis themselves and they will take the decision about this, does give us a very clear reminder of the total and barbaric brutality of that regime." Yes, yes, we're not arguing about that - do you think he should be hanged by the neck and swing from a gibbet?
The foreign secretary Margaret Beckett laid out the government line in an interview with the BBC, saying it was "right" that Saddam should face Iraqi justice. "It is absolutely the case that we do not approve of the death penalty, never have and always try to persuade others not to use it. However, this is the verdict of the Iraqi court, it is a matter for the government of Iraq."
I think Saddam should be given special treatment for mental incapacity. He keeps saying he doesn't recognise the court.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 1:36 PM
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Nice post - I agree completely.
What does Tony Blair being a Christian have to do with it though?
My grasp of Christianity tells me that Tony Blair should forgive. That's what I remember from RE lessons anyway. I dare say things have moved on!
Agree with you Andrew, but to be fair to Blair and the loathsome Beckett, they can't be seen to tell the Iraqis not to impose the death sentence, as (rightly or wrongly) it's in their constitution. This was always bound to be a consequence of Hussein being tried in Iraq rather than an international court.
If Blair really wanted to take a moral stand, he should criticise Iraq AND threaten to break off links with all countries which still endorse the death sentence, but that's not going to happen while there's a risk of upsetting the "special relationship" (no more "Yo, Blair"s for our Tone if they do).
On a happier note, does this return to active blogging mean a book-sized weight has been lifted from your shoulders Andrew?
It's a bit too late for Blair to come over all moral now, isn't it? Thousands of grieving Iraqis might not quite understand it if a man responsible for killing thousands of their number were to turn around and tell them not to kill Saddam. I don't condone this execution at all but frankly Saddam's death will be one of the least bad drops in this particular ocean.
Is it me, or is Blair coming across more and more like a petulant child recently?
Andrew: I completely agree re: Blair and his Christianity. He irritates me as it seems he invokes it when it suits him. Yes, it is in the Bible to forgive, it's in the Bible not to kill, and it's in the Bible that we are not the ones to judge what another's life is worth. But you'd be amazed at how many American politicians and Evangelical leaders have used the Bible to defend the death penalty, too. (Mainly the Old Testament.) My point is you could literally spend a lifetime throwing Biblical quotes backwards and forwards but it's never going to give you a definitive answer when someone has decided what they think already and is merely looking for proof. (Hmm. Sounds a bit like weapons of Mass Desctruction all over again.)
Px
I think it is right that Saddam was tried by an Iraqi court, and I also think that it is not Tony Blair's place to tell Iraq how they should punish him for his crimes.
However, I do think that he should condemn it - it's not the same as ordering them not to do it after all.
The rest of Europe (individually and the EU) don't seem to have a problem codemning his death sentence, so why must Tony sit on the fence and be so wishy washy? It's hardly a controversial stance after all, in the West in the 21st Century, to be anti-capital punishment.
"It's hardly a controversial stance after all, in the West in the 21st Century, to be anti-capital punishment."
Well, you say that, and I'd really like to agree, but my sixth form had a speaker in from Amnesty on Monday lunchtime. She spoke for about half an hour, just explaining what Amnesty was about, and then at the end asked us what we thought about Saddam's sentence. Of the twenty of us there, I was the only one willing to condemn Saddam's execution and, as it turned out, the death penalty in general. Everyone else (who spoke) thought it was a *good thing* and couldn't really understand the problem. In a previous discussion quite a few of them also felt that torture was fine, providing it wasn't physical, so sleep deprevation and verbal threats are fine. We tried to persuade them that they might be slightly underestimating the effects of psychological torture, but apparently they only wanted to 'worry' the prisoners. I stayed behind at the end and the woman from Amnesty looked a bit distraught. I pointed out that she'd only seen the selection of people who wanted to come to the Amnesty meeting. I don't know why.
Um, sorry for going off the point, and stuff, especially considering most of you stopped reading when I mentioned I was a teenager, but, you know, it frightened me.
Fascinating, if deeply worrying, Anon. And these were the people who turned up to an Amnesty talk! You might say, what hope for the future? (I often think this dark thought when I hear what young people have to say - if only they were a bit more like you.) I think the media has a lot to answer for. Clearly, Saddam was a dictator and a murderous one. He brought suffering to his people that Amnesty would take a dim view of, but does that mean he should be tortured and killed in return? I can't get into that mindset. But the media has painted him as a pantomime villain, and as such his execution is seen as a natural end. Who, after all, would stand up and defend his right to live? Some kind of liberal apologist for his crimes! I don't apologise for his crimes, but if you kill one man, or stand by and refuse to condemn the state that kills him, you have blood on your hands.
I feel sad that the majority of the pupils thought killing him was a good thing, and feel the Amnesty woman's pain. My own view is that the selfish years of Thatcherism have not gone away. Indeed, they sowed seeds that are blooming right now, in generations born after Thatcher's peak. Selfish parents breed selfish kids. It's no excuse, as I rejected my own parents' politics as a teenager, but I think this kneejerk look-after-number-one attitude runs deeper than politics.
Discuss.
Well, I totally agree with what you're saying. Surely if we did basically what Saddam did then we are just as bad as him. It is time that Blair left, but I'd rather he stayed for any number of years than if we get a Tory government which it seems is quite likely to happen. All this shit with David Cameron trying to be cool by admitting he listens to The Killers. And his comments about rap were so typically Tory. So he tries to make it up by inviting a rapper I've never even heard of called Rhymefest to his "crib" to make it up. It's all publicity. And it does sicken me with the attitude to any kind of politics from many teenagers. They quite frankly don't give a toss about any war in Iraq or anything like that. And now I sound like an old man when I'm only 14.
I did feel like a bit of a liberal apologist, yes. I have to say I went along to the meeting with half a mind on the sandwiches, thinking that human rights were indeed self evident, so I'm rather glad of the experience aside from the despair.
I think it's interesting what you said about the legacy Thatcherism has on my generation, Andrew. On the one hand I think my generation has grown up with a negative image of Thatcher. Being born in 1989 and given the name Margaret (lord knows why) I can safely vouch for that, being called Margaret Thatcher in the playground at primary school was always intended as an insult. But although we have grown up with a negative image of the eighties and its politics we haven't really been taught the ins and outs of it. In short we know Thatcher is bad but I think a lot of my peers wouldn't be able to say what is bad about Thatcherism. So if Thatcherism (continues) to be persued I'm not sure a lot of my generation would notice.
I'm not sure how typical the views expressed at the Amnesty meeting are amongst my generation, I think we're as politically diverse as any other. The level of apathy and politic ignorance frightens me aswell, although I hate to confirm the view. Some of my friends don't care because they don't see what politics has got to do with them (back to the selfish Thatcherite legacy), and others just don't seem to know even the most basic of things other than that they hate Tony Blair, the one view that seems to be universal for my generation. There are plenty of us who do take an interest in politics of course, I'm not the only socialist amongst my friends either.
If it's of interest the last school election (to coincide with the general in 2005) came down overwhelmingly on the side of the Tories, with the left vote split between the Lib Dems and Greens, and somewhere in the region of half a dozen votes for Labour, and that was before shiny, shiny David Cameron came along.
I have a real essay to write, can you tell? In short, I don't know how my generation will turn out, and I suppose that's always been true. Is there hope for the future? I'll try to go to more meetings even when they don't offer sandwiches, is that a deal?
Maggie, I'm glad you're not the only one, and yes, keep going to those meetings! Put it this way, when I was in the sixth form, nobody from Amnesty or anywhere else came to give a talk. I got my political education from the NME, and that's a fact. Not much chance of that these days is there?
The post-Thatcher generation have access to so much more information than we did, and yet, they seem to question a lot less. (I hate to generalise. Indeed, Maggie, you alone offer hope!)
There's always a big danger of confusing "selfishness" with apathy. And also of confusing apathy with a sense of disenfranchisement. The lurching of the main parties to the centre has left an awful lot of people's views unrepresented on both sides. Something will give eventually and I fear it won't be a pretty sight.
In any case, in my experience capital punishment isn't really a left/right issue and I'm certainly not surprised that a sample of sixth formers were largely pro, for Saddam at least. Young people generally do see things in black and white and are less likely to really appreciate what killing someone really means. You'd certainly have got the same response at my sixth form college back in the eighties, yet I'm sure that if you asked my contemporaries now, it would at least be a closer run thing. A lot of people don't become politically aware until they get out into the "real world", and young people are taking longer and longer to do that these days. And for reasons completely unfathomable to me, the Conservatives seem to have done well in school elections since time immemorial. Perhaps they're always the first box on the ballot paper.
There's always a big danger of confusing "selfishness" with apathy. And also of confusing apathy with a sense of disenfranchisement. The lurching of the main parties to the centre has left an awful lot of people's views unrepresented on both sides. Something will give eventually and I fear it won't be a pretty sight.
In any case, in my experience capital punishment isn't really a left/right issue and I'm certainly not surprised that a sample of sixth formers were largely pro, for Saddam at least. Young people generally do see things in black and white and are less likely to really appreciate what killing someone really means. You'd certainly have got the same response at my sixth form college back in the eighties, yet I'm sure that if you asked my contemporaries now, it would at least be a closer run thing. A lot of people don't become politically aware until they get out into the "real world", and young people are taking longer and longer to do that these days. And for reasons completely unfathomable to me, the Conservatives seem to have done well in school elections since time immemorial. Perhaps they're always the first box on the ballot paper.
Apologies - apparently pressing the button twice publishes your comment twice. You live and learn, which was kind of my point.
Andrew, just to check, what did you mean by "there's not much chance of that anymore", regarding then NME?
Possibly that it has become Smash Hits without the edge?
I bought the NME last week (Mike Skinner, Pete Doherty (with NO K !!!) on the cover.
Oh dear.
What happened ? It was the first NME I had read for about 20 years.
oh dear oh dear oh dear
It didn't even last the flight to Copenhagen.
By Greenland I had given it to someone else. I don't know if they were at all happy about this. I wanted to recycle.
Aidan, I was simply comparing the rather dour and serious, politcally-charged NME I used to read from cover to cover in the late 70s and early 80s, to the colourful, branded, cross-promotional magazine it is now.
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Ok well I see what you mean , but from reading the NME I at least learn how bad the Tories really are and even that must count for something? Surely they had to change to keep readers happy? I wouldn't mind reading about the politics, but I'm not sure other readers would.
...got my politics from "the rather dour and serious, politcally-charged NME I used to read from cover to cover in the late 70s and early 80s" and it shows,
I'm not sure if the previous post is supposed to be a criticism of my politics or not. If it is, I'm proud to have been stirred at that time. The 80s was a political decade in precisely the way that this one is an increasingly apolitical one. The NME put Neil Kinnock on the cover - it was a rather dour cover, just a photo of him against a black background - in the week before the 1987 general election. Now that's what I call nailing your colours to the mast. It inspired me. In it, he laid out the simple Old Labout tenets of looking after those who were old, those who were poor, those who were sick, and it really hit home. Didn't help Labour get elected, but it's like the first Velvet Underground gig - they always say that hardly anybody was there, but those who were went out and formed a band.
When I first left school and got a job at the age of 16 (in 1987) I became aware of politics. I mainly thought the same as my Dad and my brother (he was older than me). We are all Labour people. As I got a couple of years older I would have discussions/arguments with my friends about politics. Nothing heavy as I didn't know as much as some people.
My friends are all 2 or 3 years older than me and when we were in our early 20s they all voted Tory. I used to argue about the NHS and the schools. They would say that they didn't care about the NHS as they could afford to go private. I would explain about the people who couldn't go private and how I am happy to help them - after all, I will probably need the NHS at some point too. None of my friends seemed to care about this and wouldn't even entertain the fact that they may be in need of some help in the future, but it may be too late by then.
Now they are all married with children they all vote Labour as "they have better policies about education". I have always thought that deep down they were selfish (although I consider them to be decent people at the same time). It's funny how they are the ones who spoil their kids and feel the need to give them whatever they can afford, even if they don't need the toys. In some circumstances, they still give their kids too much even though they can't afford it and are living beyond their means. They then get upset as they can't afford to pay for the children's school dimmers. They have a nice house though, which has recently been extended!
I don't know if they are this way because of their parents, or whether they are in the minority. But out of 4 couples, I believe only one of us isn't selfish. If this is a true cross-section of society, it is quite frightening. They are also quite racist, but I don't think they see that they are.
I bet they think Saddam should be put to death, but I daren't get into a debate with them over it!
It's interesting to read your post, Shelley. You are six years younger than me. It's fascinating how having kids seems to make some people more insular - and by extension selfish. (Billy Bragg told me how he felt when he first became a dad - protective, obviously, but suddenly aware of the outside world, car exhaust fumes and the like - so instead of becoming more inward-looking, it made him see the world in a broader perspective. This strikes me as an atypical reaction.)
Andrew, it's funny that you mention being insular as my friends are very insular - not wanting to do anything if it involves going outside their home town. They think everything should come to them.
I think you are right about Bragg's view being atypical. I think that people who are generally selfish will also be selfish when it comes to their kids.
It is selfish when they think it is ok to let their children run around and scream and shout, no matter where they are, just because everyone knows that children make noise. It's the same attitude as smoking, people who don't smoke or do not have children should just put up with it.
I was only moaning to my friends (the same ones as mentioned above) about my neighbour who has children who, every morning, wake me up by jumping, running, screaming and banging. All this going on before 7am. I know my neighbour well and I put up with a lot of noise that I don't even think about as I know children can't be quiet all the time. But when I told my friends they didn't see the problem.
Don't get me wrong, I love children and would like some of my own, but I don't see why they should be able to run riot and disturb everyone else.
I only hope that if I do have children, my views do not change and I will be like your mate Billy!
I came across perhaps the classic example of insular parents the other day. Browsing the forum page of the Chiswick community website - a fairly desperate thing to do I grant you - I stumbled across a vigorous debate about Richmond Coucil's decision to charge extra for parking permits for 4x4s.
The pro 4x4 lobby - and there were plenty of them, this being Chiswick - kept returning to the justification that driving their children around in 4x4s was safer. When it was pointed out that it may be safer for them but was considerably more dangerous for everyone else not in a 4x4 their attitude was - it is my duty to protect my children in any way possible even if this means putting others at greater risk.
There's a perverse logic to this but it's a logic that takes us towards the 'there's no such thing as society' territory of Thatcher.
I'm a new(ish) parent of an 8 month old boy and I have to say I'm much more concerned about him growing up in a society that advocates driving its children round in armoured personnel carriers for their own protection than I am about the other challenges he will no doubt face on the mean streets of London.
But I fear you're right Andrew - we are in the minority (although if you're going to be in a minority, being in one with Billy Bragg is no bad thing).
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