Subject: The Hanging of Saddam Hussein

An Iraq Appeals Court has confirmed the conviction and the hanging sentence of Saddam Hussein. A recent poll in Canada by one newspaper found that 75% of those polled disagreed with the Court's decision that approved the death sentence and only 25% agreed with the decision. And 71% of those polled disagree with the death penalty while on 29% approve of the death penalty. For all practical purposes, the death penalty in Canada would be almost impossible to reintroduce despite the heightened media and plitically-induced hysteria about the increasing brutality of ciminality in Canada.

 A recent report by the Human Rights Watch group concluded that the trial of Saddam Hussein was fundamentally unfair.

 But what is my own view of the conviction and the death sentence imposed on Saddam Hussein? Because I write a lot of articles for different media, a lot of people have inquired about why I support the view that saddam Hussein should not be hanged despite his murderous rule in Iraq. Because of time constraints I will not go into details. Interested readers may want to access the 97- page report issued by Human Rights Watch on Monday November 20th, 2006 decrying the fact that the trial was unfair and was pressured  to get the desired result by the US and Britain. Bare in mind that the tribunal that tried him was only created after the invasion and the

judges were handpicked by the US. The first Chief judge was fired at the behest of the US because he was seen to be sympathetic to Saddam. This report is a must read.

Regardless of whether or not someone is guilty, the hallmark of a criminal trial is fairness. If the trial is not fair, then the result even if justified is reversible as unfair. An unfair trial taints the result and makes it unpalatable. If it can happen to him, it can also happen to you. Injustice in one place is injustice everywhere.

But that is not my quarrel with the proposed  and imposed death sentence. My quarrel is that the death penalty is not merely a legal tool but is mostly a political tool in all societies, particularly in the US and US -controlled countries like Iraq. The US had no problem aligning with Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran

and when he decimated the Kurds with US assistance in the 1980s. The US created Hussein as they did Bin Laden. They did not call for the death penalty or charge and trial of Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden when these two were their allies. They only called for the death penalty when Saddam Hussein and Bin Laden became their enemies. Should justice depend on friendship? We know it does. So why pretend it does not depend on friendship? Double standard justice is intolerable under any circumstances anywhere and everywhere.

 The US were opposed to the crimes against humanity charges against Pinochet in Chile because they created him and he massacred thousands of innocent people. The US was allied with apartheid in the

massacre of innocent blacks there. They favoured the Truth and Reconciliation Commission route there so that their friends, the Bothas of this world would not be hanged.

In the Us the death penalty mainly afflicts the blacks and the poor. The innocent convicted but exonerated find it difficult to even get compensation and the US has hardly acknowledged that its death penalty policy is always

racially and politically motivated.  The justiceness of the death penalty is merely collateral.Amnesty nternational has published study after study documenting the political and racial nature of the death penalty in the US. Mind you, the US is the only western country that still retains the death penalty. That speaks volumes, doesn't it? Look at the other countries that inflicts the death penalty: Iraq; Saudi Arabia; China; most African countries ( except South Africa); Pakistan etc. What company is the US keeping in the matter of the death penalty?

But the US does not hang their soldiers who are convicted of murdering civilians abroad. They even hardly charge them. They soon after conviction on minor charges (reduced for political reasons) get pardons. The US is the most hypocritical nation in the world when it comes to the death penalty and other legal and political issues. The Saddam Hussein case is just the latest.

The current Regime in Iraq that was imposed by the US is interested in the hanging of Saddam Hussein for political and not legal reasons. They want to get rid of saddam Hussein for all time otherwise if he is let to live he will be a continuing thorn in their sides for as long as he lives. Killing him however, will create a legend that will haunt Iraq for eternity.

And these are only among other reasons why I oppose the Saddam hanging. Others include the fact that there are just too many wrongful convictions to cause me to question the validity of the death penalty. I am also opposed to the intentional and calm killing of another person by the state who probably did not intentionally or calmy kill another human being. This is a moral ground. I think we should still have some anchor in moral

universes.

If there has to be the death penalty anywhere, can we be assured that the

politics of it will no longer be the motivating force?