What About Saddam

For some reason I don't feel comfortable about the upcoming execution of Saddam Hussein.

Don't get me wrong and think that I have any sympathy for him because of what he was involved in because I don't, but I do question the morality and the right of anyone making a conscious decision to end the life of another person no matter how barbaric they have been. Thats quite a change for me as at various points in my life when the question of capital punishment has come up I, along with millions have reasoned that some criminals are so sick and their deeds so repulsive that they deserve to die and I can somehow feel justified in wanting them dead. We have certainly had our share of individuals who have killed without thought or justification or sometimes for pleasure many, many times over and they have been put to death by hanging, or the gas chamber, lethal injection, electrocution and god only knows how many other methods.

But has their deaths brought anything that contributes to the well being of our society or any individual within it, or has all that has happened that another life has been ended and a need to feel revenge been fulfilled. I am definitely against the death penalty being ordered through any court, we have simply got it wrong to many times. I am basically against taking a human life for any reason.............. except.

There's the problem, we all have this "except" and it becomes an measuring stick of tolerance against what we all know is wrong. What if he bludgeoned a baby girl to death in her carriage in front of her mother, does that warrant the death penalty? How about killing someone who you think wants to kill you, guess, what that, doesn't count as an accountable killing even though the end result of both is that someone is left dead. I can't wade through the maze of compromises that determine guilt, innocence or somewhere in between. What I have to do is to clasp onto the idea that I know is right, you can't take another life.

I have watched the Iraqi mess along with the rest of the world and simply cannot make any sense of it. Soldiers kill civilians with their guns and explosives and planes and guess what ,its categorized as collateral damage, but the bottom line is that someone was walking their kids to school and their life was taken, and no one is guilty, isn't it amazing how we can justify the unjustifiable when it is in our interest to do so. And who could we point the finger at, the soldier who pulled the trigger, no he's just doing his job. The commander who sent the soldier out, nope he's just following orders. What about the General who devised the "rules of engagement" that allowed for the civilian to be shot, not him, he's just carrying out military strategy as it was taught to him. Well what about the guys who started it all, can't be them, they're just protecting the national interest even if the national interest was never threatened. Since the time of "Old Methusalah", "people love the big bamboozala" was never truer.

So somebody decided that the lives that were lost when Saddam Hussein sent his General to deal with the insurgents who tried to assassinate him, who then sent his Commander to deal with it, who told the soldiers who went into the village, who shot everybody up is going to result in somebody gettin hanged.

Kind of reminds me of Mai Lei, only Johnson or Nixon or whoever was steering the ship went on to a nice retirement, guess they're lucky the Vietcong never came to their town.