Sadam Executed

seamus · Post by **seamus** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 10:21 am

Right or wrong?

truthhurts · Post by **truthhurts** » Sat Dec 30, 2006 3:56 pm

no way is it right.
interesting how the americans installed him in the role in the first place.
he must a got sick of giving them the oil.

seamus · Post by **seamus** » Sun Dec 31, 2006 6:46 am

truthhurts wrote:no way is it right.

I know... it would have been good enough for me if they had just stuck him in jail

HereticChick · Post by **HereticChick** » Mon Jan 01, 2007 11:20 pm

I wish our lovely president GW would've kept his Texas, Long-barrel nose the hell OUT of Iraq. I don't think they should've executed him either.

drk · Post by **drk** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 7:26 pm

Na, no way should he have been executed. Saint Saddam the Martyr anyone? Not that he didn't deserve it (regardless of how he got to, or stayed in, power), but it would have been better to let him rot away into obscurity somewhere. The press coverage was kind of grotesque too, wasn't it?

CitizenPaine · Post by **CitizenPaine** » Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:17 pm

Totally wrong, even surprising. If Rudolf Hess could have been kept in prison for all of his natural life, then so could Saddam. That way he would have been forgotton. Now he never will be. People will always remember the hanging video.

Citizen P.

Niamh · Post by **Niamh** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 12:34 pm

CitizenPaine wrote:Totally wrong, even surprising. If Rudolf Hess could have been kept in prison for all of his natural life, then so could Saddam. That way he would have been forgotton. Now he never will be. People will always remember the hanging video.

Citizen P.

I agree. About the best thing that they could have done for his reputation as hero/martyr (for his followers anyway) was to execute him. There's no glamour in lifelong imprisonment. This is apart from the general moral wrongness of it too, of course.

Stublore · Post by **Stublore** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 10:17 am

Saddam by his direct actions ensured the obliteration of @2 million people from this planet. He was the leader of a sadistic regime in which people lived in terror.
Given that we only have 1 life, the taking of his for his vile actions is totally appropriate. It seems much more humane to me, than locking him up in a plush prison for the rest of his life, and given the current state of Iraq i am quite sure the money saved could be put to a much better use.
I do think that the broadcast of the execution was crass, but i think many ppl would not have believed it if they did not see it.
(waiting for the first conspiracy theory to say he is still alive, and the video is a fake

)

brianmmulligan · Post by **brianmmulligan** » Fri Jan 12, 2007 3:29 pm

As a rationalist and aethiest I think that this question is phrased incorrectly. It is not a matter of whether it is good or bad, right or wrong to execute Saddam. Morality is a pragmatic natural inclination and social meme that helps us to maximise happiness in society. Any further misery caused to Saddam, either by locking him up for life or by executing him is relatively insignificant compared to the potential for misery in the future caused by conflict within the muslim faith and confilict between muslims and non-muslims.

So the question should be whether the execution is likely to cause more or less misery in the future. This is a tactical question, and there may be many arguments either way. Despite the fact that most responses were very definite, I'm afraid that I'll have to admit that my ability to predict the future is not so good and would have to say that I'm unsure about whether it was the 'right' thing to do or not.

He certainly did not "deserve" anything insofar that this is an emotional moralist approach that does not mean anything. It springs from our automated psychological mechanisms for protecting ourselves which is also reinforced by social memes (mostly religious

Brian

brianmmulligan · Post by **brianmmulligan** » Sat Jan 13, 2007 3:37 pm

My last post seemed to be truncated. No harm, says you. Despite the fact that I think I wrote quite a bit more, it seems to catch my main point.

As rationalists, we should avoid being emotionally moralistic about right and wrong but base our judgements on what is best for us all in the future.

brian