Word: saddams
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...case against executing Saddam has little to do with justice. (Though it has some: as Gary J. Bass has argued, Saddam still faces trial for an even worse offense, the genocide of Kurds at Anfal in 1988, which will never be prosecuted adequately if he is put to death now.) It comes down instead to politics. In a perfect world, Iraq's courts would be free of sectarian biases and worthy of public trust. But many Sunnis who loathed Saddam distrust the institutions of the Shi'ite-led government even more. I doubt that most Sunnis will view Saddam...
...Iraqis who suffered under Saddam would be outraged at the idea of granting him clemency. But beyond the fleeting, visceral satisfaction of giving Saddam the same violent end that he administered to his victims, there's little political upside for the Iraqi government in putting him to death. It will not slow down the pace of Iraq's sectarian slaughter, which is being driven by an array of uncontrollable forces. But it will almost certainly fuel Sunni rage and scuttle Pri me Minister Nouri al-Maliki's program of reconciliation, which may be the last chance to avoid an even...
...That, of course, would require the U.S. to intervene in the case, which the Bush Administration is determined not to do. U.S. civilian authorities in Iraq abolished the death penalty after Saddam's fall in 2003, out of fear that it could be too easily abused by Iraqis out to settle scores with their former Baathist tormentors. But capital punishment returned with the ratification of a new constitution in 2005. Whatever the Administration's true feelings about the wisdom of executing Saddam in such a heated environment, the U.S. appears prepared to allow the Iraqis to do as they please...
...Ultimately, the U.S. may be right to allow the Iraqis to decide Saddam's fate for themselves. But this is no time for triumphalism. It should shame both Americans and Iraqis to hear a man as repugnant as Saddam presenting himself as a uniter and imploring Iraqis "not to hate." Executing Saddam won't extinguish those fires of hatred any more than it will relieve the pain of his victims. Only when Iraqis build a decent, humane society at peace with itself will they be able to erase the memory of the crimes for which Saddam died...
...time to execute Saddam Hussein. With Iraq still under coalition occupation, as far as Iraqis are concerned the rope around Saddam's neck was American. The Shi'a and the Kurds may not care whose rope it is ? they just wanted the man dead and their pound of revenge. But for the Sunni, Saddam will become an instant martyr...