Believe it or not, a few years back, there was an incident in Philly on New Years’ Eve, I believe, where shots were fired into the air to celebrate the holiday, and a bullet hit a 5 year old boy n the head, and he was in the hospital for a week or two.
I’ve always been a staunch advocate against the possession of hand guns by citizens, and something like that incident explains why. But now that I have three grandchildren, and given the home-invasions, muggings, etc., that happen on a daily basis, I’m looking into what it takes to get a hand gun permit in NJ.
Call me paranoid or stupid… or perhaps it’s just my age!
I remember reading a report from Afghanistan a few years ago where it was stated that people were regularly killed or wounded by, er, “celebratory fire”.
I jsut want to remind you all I live in a place where the headlines are not that the man was arerested but that the man who did the arresting has a father who came from Cooraclare and his auntie is still living there. She was interviewed for televsion ofcourse [‘I am just after finding out it was himself I can’t believe it’]. He was also wearing socks that were in all probability made in Ireland.
Taht brings back th tiems where the headlines read ‘IRISHMAN DIES Titanic Sinks’
If roughly 60 years ago, we would have caught Adolf Hitler hiding in a hole in the ground - what would we have done then? Would he have been taken alive? Would one of the arresting soldiers been so angry at Hitler’s forces killing his friends all around him that he would have shot him then and there anyway?
It makes sense to keep Saddam alive as long as he’s useful and providing information. Past that, who knows. What would happen to him if he were left to the Iraqi people? I’d hardly be supprised to see calls for his public hanging or having him drawn and quartered! But then again, the question of martyrdom arises. Will he become like Yoda or Obi Ben Kenobi? “If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!” Still, I bet Yoda could kick Saddam’s whimpy little butt any day of the week!
If anyone in the US doesn’t think we should kill him, fine
Of course there are people in the US who don’t think we should kill him. A very large number, in fact. As much as I oppose it, I do think he will be killed, but not by the US. By the new Iraqi government.
Killing people who are convicted of crimes (even murder) is animalistic and revengeful, and I’d like to think the human race is above that, actually human and more civilized. I really would.
transfer Hussien to Iran where he will probably get swift justice. (That he deserves)
I’m confused by this. Why would we send him to Iran?
Ever since 9/11, I have felt that Osama should be tried in Mecca, Saudi Arabia for a multitude of reasons. Saddam would have even less of a chance for anything other than a painful Islamic death by God-knows-what means. The problem is that Iraqis should have first judgment but I think an Islamic trial would really shake things up.
I re-state this idea here. To me, this would force Saudi Arabia to stop fence-sitting on terrorism. The Islamic world would both hold up a mirror to themselves as well as be viewed by the rest of the world. The US could not be seen as the judge and jury and executioner.
You might ask: what if Osama is acquitted? Well, just imagine how that would be viewed in some terms of absolute justice and paradigm of universal good and evil.
Saddam, who is a Baath secularist anyhoo, is a pretty poor excuse of an Arab other than his now-unmasked role of brave warrior who stood up to the Crusaders.
Probably a pipe dream but everybody is offering their ideas on this.
I figure that whoever wields the axe is irrelevant. Mad-Eye Bush has declared that he would like to see Saddam dead; I would imagine his words carry a bit of influence with his puppet government in Iraq…
I don’t know what will be the outcome. Ceaucescu was expedited in a way which gave people a good public revenge, while radically shutting his lie-box.
Maybe Saddam will have for once some good taste, and conveniently suicide for ultimate decency. Only problem here is the TV-addict doesn’t get his fix of blood.
Or maybe a good assassination by a fanatic, himself being immediately gunned by a righteous guard? Then (see above) it will have to be during his broadcasted transfer from a prison to the courthouse.
Whatever: no public talking, no name-dropping of who armed him against Iran, no need to lengthly brainwash him in a jail until he can’t think or talk, no need for a farce of justice in a country without working institutions or just a stable legal system.
The worse that some would fear is something like Milosevic’s trial : lengthy and documented, with side-arrests growing the case to be not of a sole scapegoat man, but of a whole chain of responsibilities. Who needs a Big Mouth Bully Baas ?
The Vatican’s Cardinal Renato Martino stressed the Roman Catholic Church’s longtime opposition to capital punishment.
He said he felt “compassion” for Saddam, despite his crimes, after seeing images of “this destroyed man” being “treated like a cow, having his teeth checked” by an American military medic.’
Surely he will be, and I think, should be, tried
by the people of Iraq, against whom his
worst crimes were committed. They have
jurisdiction and such a trial will help
cement their nationhood and new beginning.
As I recall, the former governor of Oklahoma, Mr. Frank Keating, was a Roman Catholic who was reprimanded by his bishop for saying something to the effect that the Pope was entitled to his opinion on capital punishment, but that he (Keating) didn’t agree with it.
