Juan Cole makes the point that Saddam’s execution was not justice, but revenge:
Saddam Hussein was tried under the shadow of a foreign military occupation, by a government full of his personal enemies. The first judge, an ethnic Kurd, resigned because of government interference in the trial; the judge who took his place was also Kurdish and had grievances against the accused. Three of Saddam’s defense lawyers were shot down in cold blood. The surviving members of his defense team went on strike to protest the lack of protection afforded them. The court then appointed new lawyers who had no expertise in international law. Most of the witnesses against Saddam gave hearsay evidence. The trial ground slowly but certainly toward the inevitable death verdict.
There were clearly many grounds on which Saddam Hussein could have been tried and convicted (although I would argue once again that the death penalty - especially as administered in so barbaric a way as hanging - serves no good purpose and is in itself an act of revenge, not justice). But the way the trial and the execution played out, justice has been denied for both Saddam, and more importantly, the thousands of people he killed during his reign. What makes this even more tragic is that this injustice is likely to prolong and intensify the sectarian conflict which is promising the deaths of even more thousands of Iraqis in the future.
And the occupying Americans, who one would think have had a pretty good influence over the whole process, stood by and let it happen.
Yes, I am against the death penalty in ALL cases - even for Saddam Hussein. Protecting the sanctity of life means protecting ALL lives, not just those which are cute and cuddly or that somehow seem to deserve it more.
Here’s what I TRULY want for Christmas:
Outgoing UN chief Kofi Annan says he believes Sudan is about to approve the deployment of an African Union-UN force to curb the rising violence in Darfur.
Obviously, this is just the first step on a long road toward ending the genocide in Darfur, but it would be a welcome one.
It appears that when confronted with the specter of a same-sex couple raising a baby, Focus on the Family has taken quite an “anti-life” position:
Focus on the Family, an influential Christian group that has provided crucial political support to President Bush, released a statement that criticized child rearing by same-sex couples.
“Mary Cheney’s pregnancy raises the question of what’s best for children,” the group’s director of issues analysis, Carrie Gordon Earll, said in a statement. “Just because it’s possible to conceive a child outside of the relationship of a married mother and father doesn’t mean it’s the best for the child. Love can’t replace a mom or a dad.”
I have a few questions for the FotFers on this one. Based on the statement above, I wonder if they would say that it would have been better for the child to have never been conceived than for it to be raised by a same-sex couple? If that is the case, isn’t that an incredibly hypocritical, anti-life position (using the terms of the “pro-life” movement)?
Disclaimer: I am anti-abortion but do not consider myself “pro-life,” which is a political word meant to vilify pro-abortion rights people for political gain. If you force me to apply the “pro-life” label to myself, then I would add that being truly pro-life requires me to be against the death penalty and also against war.
I’m not sure where to come down with regard to the argument that it is “best for the child” to have both a mother and a father. It all depends on whether there is something intrinsically good in having parents of opposite sexes, and I’m not sure where the science comes down on this one. I suspect there may be some value in an idealized situation, as there likely are lessons which are taught better by one gender or the other to the children. But I’m not willing to bet a whole lot of money on that suspicion, and am quite prepared to be wrong about it.
But how can anyone in their right minds NOT consider it to be better for a child to be raised in a loving gay or lesbian family than not to exist at all? And how can anyone even consider that it would be better for a child to live their life an orphan rather than be adopted by a gay or a lesbian family who will love him or her? It boggles the mind that anyone could think such things.
And yet for many in the Religious Right, who support bans on adoption for gays and lesbians, it is this outcome exactly that would be the result of those policies. More orphans.
Not exactly what I would call “family values.”
