Should Saddam hang?
November 13, 2006 at 4:05 The Dalai Lama has asked that the life of Saddam Hussein be spared.
Quoted in an AFP news story posted on Yahoo, he says:
“The death penalty is said to fulfill a preventive function, yet it is clearly a form of revenge," the Nobel peace laureate told reporters.
"However horrible an act a person may have committed, everyone has the potential to improve and correct himself," he said.
"I hope that in the case of Saddam Hussein, as with all others, that human life will be respected and spared."
This gave me pause because somewhere along the line I became a person who believes that some people will not change, that evil begets evil, and the best way to end the cycle of snowballing acts of violence, deception, and immorality is to end the life of the perpetrator.
But wait, isn’t this what terrorists believe?
Isn’t this what the U.S. government believes?
Isn’t this the rationale that’s used to justify torture and killings the world over?
As a young news reporter, I covered the local police beat and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. I saw crime scene photos of blood splattered walls, graphic images of people who had been murdered in their homes, and read pages and pages and pages of documents detailing heinous crimes.
When the pardon and parole board would meet at the state’s maximum security prison, I spent two full days immersed not only in the crimes that landed people in prison to start with, but also the crimes and offenses they committed once they arrived there. During the hearings and some other events at the prison, I sat next to murderers, sex offenders, and notorious criminals as well as drug addicts and pushers, drunk drivers, burglars and robbers, and wrong-time-wrong-place offenders.
I heard a woman who had doused her four children with kerosene and set them on fire explain to the parole board chairman that she’d “been under a lot of stress at the time.” I heard the testimony of someone who had stabbed a woman in a Safeway parking lot because of a disagreement over who was entitled to a particular parking place. I covered a re-trial that resulted in the release of a man who had been in prison for years and years. I saw his relief and the family of the victim’s grief wash over their faces in equal measure. This wasn’t a TV show or a drama, these were real people and real lives, damaged and ruined. Beyond repair?
At one point in my brief journalism career, I was summoned to the prison and asked to meet with an inmate who was holding a woman nurse hostage in the prison infirmary. The male inmate wanted to talk to a reporter from my paper, and the warden and prison psychologist hoped that if I met with him, I might be able to negotiate the nurse’s release. I never thought of saying no even though I was ill-equipped for the job.
I went face to face with the guy, talking to him through a wide crack in the door he’d propped open. Part of the shock of the experience was recognizing that this person, who was not that much taller than me and wiry in build, had locked down an entire prison for more than a day by threatening one person with a small, sharpened piece of metal.
She was cowering on the floor with a tear- and mascara-stained face while I listened to her captor ramble on about his crimes and how he didn’t deserve to be in prison. It was hard to concentrate on what he was saying and ask questions. My brain froze, and to this day, I struggle to remember what he said--something about a bartender in Florida who could provide him with an alibi. Though I've forgotten his words and even his name, I can still see his face. He had red hair and brown eyes, just like me.
The moment I turned my back on him and walked away, heading down a corridor, he hung himself.
The SWAT team that was covering my ass while I talked to him stormed the infirmary, cut him and down, and saved his life.
They could have turned their heads when they entered that room. They could have focused on getting the woman out and paused for just a moment longer before cutting him down, letting him die in the process.
But they didn’t.
They saved him from himself and put him on a gurney. The hallway filled first with the horrible gurgling sound of his strangled breaths and then with the unearthly sound of his wails. He survived, and at his hearing on the hostage-taking incident, he tried to attack a news photographer.
Working as a reporter, I realized some people live only to create discord, pain, and violence in every setting they find themselves in, and in my mind, I found a lot of justification for the death penalty, and yet the desire to preserve human life in all its permutations is overwhelming.
Had I been alone in that room with that man when he hung himself, would I have let him die? Despite my intellectual support of the death penalty, would I have volunteered to cover an execution at the prison? Would I have been able to flip the switch, empty the syringe, or release the trap door on someone sentenced to death? I know I wouldn’t have been able to do any of those things, then or now.
Despite the nightmares that haunted me for years after I quit work as a reporter, despite my feelings that some people don’t deserve to breathe good air and see the dawn of another day, my instinct is to preserve life, even life I abhor.
Still, I flinched when the Dalai Lama made a plea for Saddam’s life. As a Christian, I know Jesus offers redemption to all people in all times and circumstances, but there are moments I don’t want to consider the implications of that truth. It can be easy to dismiss as well-intentioned and idealistic the pacifists and people of many faiths who eschew violence in all forms, yet I understand the thought process that acknowledges the danger of the path we set our feet on when we see killing as an unpleasant means to a noble end.
Do I want to see Saddam hang for the atrocities he committed? Would that pave the way for a fresh beginning for the millions who suffered at his hand? Would that deter his supporters from trying to carry on his legacy? Is an imperturbable, matter-of-fact, zero tolerance policy that delivers consequences for actions effective? Is it just?
Or would I prefer to see Saddam’s life spared and a message delivered on the power of non-violence in the peace-making process?
Do I believe either policy makes the world a better place or have I given up hope on shifting the balance between good and evil in the world? Such a loss of hope may be the most dangerous thing of all.
This morning I have no answers. Just questions to follow me through this day and the days to come.
November 13, 2007
Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved. www.v-grrrl.com.
Reader Comments (13)
Hmmm... OK I will give you my 0.02 The Dalai Lama is right. Putting Saddam to death accomplishes nothing positive. He may be responsible for the deaths of over 1 million people. However, we might make the arguement that Mr. Bush is also responsible for the deaths of at least 1/2 million Iraqis. Different circumstances? Different motivations? Perhaps, but the results are the same - innocent people needlessly dying.
If Saddam is hanged, it will appease certain factions If he is sent to prison, others will be vilified. In the end, it makes little difference.
I'm no pacifist, but I see no point in the death penalty. It does not serve as a detterent to crime. It simply proves that we as a society can be as cruel and inhumane as those we put to death. The ultimate schadenfreude...
Kim H
There are no easy answers.
V-I had no idea you had such experiences as a reporter. What an impact that must have had on you. Retelling just a little of your experiences must have brought it all back in living color. Wow.
Although I am not against the death penalty, it's become more of a gray area for me with the advanced DNA testing that has exonerated more than one person on death row or serving life in prison (and one is enough). In Saddam's case, however, there is no doubt he is guilty of his crime. "Crime" ... what a pitiful word that is to describe his actions. My thoughts are that if he dies, the people whose relatives were lost might feel some relief and even the people who have been his hinchmen might be glad to get out from under his evil. Sometimes those in such positions are not there by choice. If he dies, will the judges and lawyers (and their relatives) associated with the case breathe a little easier? Well, the ones who are still alive that is. The other thought is that if he does live, what is the likelihood that he will stay imprisoned? He wields such power, who is to say that he might not escape with the aid of many?
Regarding questioning whether there is still hope, I know what you mean. I confess I avoid the TV news as much as possible. How much can you watch the war in Iraq, the latest terrorist events, the overall dreadful situation in the Middle East (how do you get up each and every day with so much to fear?) and so on and so on without feeling like you will never smile again and the sun won't come up tomorrow? I see enough of the evils of the world by checking out the CNN site, the local news site, and reading our local paper. With those options, I can be a total whimp and choose what I want to see or read. I just can't live life with the joy it deserves if I focus on all of this evil all the time. I do have hope because without hope you just can't go on and I want to go on.
Though I can imagine plenty of instances where I would want revenge, I think it debases us as a species to act on such desires. And I don't believe this because I imagine someone changing, but rather because of how I believe state sponsored killing affects its citizens.
And I know I don't hold a popular view, at least in the U.S.
You went through an amazing experience, and you speak of it eloquently, but I have to cling to my belief that killing is wrong and should not be used as punishment.
So, I repeat: I don't believe in the death penalty. That said, I have no problem with Saddam Hussein rotting in a filthy prison for the rest of his life. And I think there probably outta be another bunk in his cell for G. W. Bush, fellow member of the Club of Powerful Leaders Responsible for the Senseless Slaughter of Thousands.
Great post, and lots of food for thought. (Sorry for the negative comments.)
But that said, Hussein will continue to pull the strings from prison and the only other option is to lock him away in solitary confinement forever with no contact with anyone on the outside. Is that the answer?
And to me, this isn't really our decision to make. The Iraqi people have their own justice system and under it, Saddam must die. It seems a bit ethnocentric to call for any other solution, no matter how compassionate the person who is asking may be.
Okay, this is SUCH a hard issue. I fight where I stand in this issue. I came to a possition that I am an across the board Pro-Life person, awhile ago. I had to find a bottom line, and that was that LIFE is sacred. The energy of life in a human being is sacred, more so than the rights of a woman or a State to decide an end to it.
The truth is, this is a hard thing for me, because my human instinct is to want to get rid of those people who kill and hurt, or set their children on fire! (my God...) As a matter of fact, I would probably BE able to do it myself in the case of certain people. I do have that in me. And I know it. I could make it okay in my head, if they were an evil enough person. If they had hurt children. And I don't think it is "teaching not to kill by killing". I think the lesson is not the point. Ending the possiblity that the evil person might do it again, is the point.Or even that the world is better without people who would set their children on fire...
But. Either I believe life is sacred, or I do not. As much as it pains me, I have to stand in my pro-Life stance. And, yes, it really pains me a little.
"I understand the thought process that acknowledges the danger of the path we set our feet on when we see killing as an unpleasant means to a noble end."--
These words are brilliantly said.
What kind of world do we want to live in? maybe the Dali Lama is on the extreme of idealistic about how the world should be...But wouldn't it be nice if we could actually make that world a reality? Wouldn't it be better?
Your amazing.
:)
:)