Capital Punishment
In the past few months, there have been a few instances of sentencing criminals (in the eyes of the said law) to death. And I have been trying to evaluate my thoughts on the subject. Earlier i thought I was against it, for i didn't think that humans had the right to decide if another human had committed a crime and that his life was therefore theirs for playing with. But that was not the only reason for my aversion to this rule, i have often wondered how people could change after a crime, agreed that at the time the crime is committed, it personifies what the person's made of..but if after 5-6 years or more he is punished, is it ever investigated if the person is still the same, if his opinion on the damage he has caused has changed, it's not as though "once a thief, always a thief" or "once a rapist always a rapist".
That was in the past, sure i still think that courts need to re-evaluate a defendant's morals when deciding on a punishment, but i know what my problem with capital punishment has been. I think that the people in the society in which the crime was committed should be the judge of the criminal and how he/she should be punished. For instance I do not like the way the Husein family (Uday, Quasy, Saddam) has been dealt with. The crimes that all these three committed were against Iraqi people and not against US, what then gives US troops to kill the two sons and say we have brought justice to the people of Iraq, no they have not, nothing makes them law enforcers or the savior of the people of Iraq, it's the people who should decide how the three people should have been punished, surely they met with an easier death if everything we know about them is true, if they did the things they are said to have them, aren't the people mad that they didn't get the chance to be a part of the punishing process? I would feel betrayed by the process if i had been a victim of their cruelty.
Now that is my problem with capital punishment, every rapist, murderer (with the wrong intentions for a murder) should positively be executed but given that the law is enforced by the people who were the victims, not some third party which just decides to take action for it forwards their means and ambitions.
So i do condemn the hanging of Saddam Hussein for it was not given the treatment it was meant to be given, it was not fair and certainly not handled properly!
ahh,reality check here - the US did not decide on how Saddam should be punished; let alone being executed. if anything the US government wanted to stall it for a while so that they could get prepared for the insurgency. and even if US had a hand to play in the execution; it is a world with one less dictator - i fail to understand what the hoopla is all about.
ReplyDeleteand as for the issue of Saddam being executed by the victims - I think the Shiites of Iraq have been victims for quite a long time; and they were just worried that keeping Saddam alive would have always meant that there was a chance that he could back come to power. Personally, I am totally against capital punishment and I also think Iraq is in no state to make such decisions without the help of an international tribuinal. I agree the sudden decision, the leaked video-tape, the religious fanaticism - all leave a bad taste in the mouth - even though the world might be a safer place today.
and yeah go ahead and drag US into this battle - coz I think it was personal; I think the destruction caused in 1993 and 2001, the fear on every american traveler's face, the loss of 25 hundred people in one day needs to be avenged.
the world will thank the american government long after it has gone; coz today it was them; tomorrow it could be India. and then you won't wait for the Pakistani people to hang Musharraf - but that is just an hypothesis. right now the world should worry about Mr. Ahmedinijad and Global-warming (I shall await for my check Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gore).
Godspeed!!!!