Margaret Beckett Disgusts Me

[poliphilo]

This country abolished capital punishment when I was a kid,  so why is a British foreign secretary welcoming the death sentence that's just been passed on Saddam Hussein?

Comments

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Thank you for saying this. Although I do not live in your country, I do not believe in capital punishment.

Even for Saddam Hussein.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Capital punishment demeans any state that practises it. That's what I believe.

[dadi.livejournal.com]

you know, I was asking myself the same thing while listening to the news this morning.. I was actually asking myself if I remembered something wrong from my history lessons?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We have all been corrupted by this fatuous and wicked "War on Terror".

[dadi.livejournal.com]

and you wanna bet that this sentence WILL have an influence on the US mid term elections? In favour of the Bush administration, alas. There ARE a lot of happy butchers out there...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

People are really, really stupid....

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Because it's alright to execute someone so long as you do it by proxy - let those nasty foreigners hang him and then the sin falls on their shoulders.

I'm just surprised that she wasn't washing her hands whilst she was being interviewed.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think Margaret Beckett is out of her depth. She may be a very nice person in private, but she doesn't have the talent or political weight to be foreign secretary

[aellia.livejournal.com]

I listened as the reporter gave the news.
He used the word *delighted* !
I am delighted when I see a rainbow,a baby smile,a butterfly.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

There is nothing about Saddam Hussein- his life or his proposed death- that is the least bit delightful.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

Yes. I heard that declaration. "Delighted" indeed. At least Spain´s PM came right out and reminded everybody that Spain and the EU forbid capital punishment and are against it across the board. This is so going to work in Bush´s favor.

Sigh.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Tony Blair, under considerable pressure from journalists, confirmed today that he is opposed to capital punishment. But will he push for a commutation of the sentence? It would be good if he at least went through the motions.

[airstrip.livejournal.com]

I suspect it's diplomacy: the Iraqi government wants to execute him, best not to object in this case. Hussein is someone for whom the only objection to execution is the one that rests on a handful of moral principles; he is an "otherwise executable", someone most people would be more than happy to have dead. It's acceptable, even for someone who opposes the penalty, to "be happy" for it on this occasion. The costs of condemnation are higher and won't accomplish anything.

For myself, I'm opposed to capital punishment as such on preciously narrow consequentialist grounds. In the case of Hussein, I am indifferent: an examination of the costs and benefits indicates that the marginal increase in brutality for Iraq is negligible (the brutalizing effect). Keeping him alive poses great risks but so does killing him. Thus I personally can't say whether I think he should be killed or not.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm opposed to capital punishment on principle. I think it demeans and brutalises the state that practises it.

OK- this is the decision of an Iraqi court and the Coalition powers are holding aloof- but, even so, I'd rather British politicians weren't crowing about it.

[solar-diablo.livejournal.com]

This pretty much sums up my position. I won't hold a candle at Hussein's execution, but to celebrate it? Disgusting.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

in the gym in the morning, there are televisions. Three of the five stations are sports, one is CNN and one is MSNBC and that's Imus. He offends me no end, but sometimes there are happenings on his program that make me...laugh. And think. This morning they were interviewing a man on the street (right outside the Port Authority terminal) about the elections. He said he was voting democratic because he thought the War in Iraq had gone on long enough. And the reporter said "Oh, so you want to cut and run?" The man actually had a good answer for that one. Then he was asked if he agreed with the death sentence for Saddam and he said absolutely not. He thought Saddam should be put in jail *all alone* for the rest of his life, but that killing was not right.

(He was also asked which he thought was worse, Rush Limbaugh making fun of Michael J. Fox or the thing with Haggard, and he said "Both.")

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Hanging people is wrong. Killing in hot blood is one thing; killing in cold blood in the name of the state is disgusting.

As for "cutting and running", From what I hear the Coalition presence in Iraq is achieving nothing. Our troops have gone from being the proposed solution to part of the problem. I read a quote from a British soldier who said, "now, we're just another tribe."

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

Either way you look at it, it's a loss.

1. Leave him alive, and people will use him like a banner to garner more support. Then, there's always the chance that someone would try and "rescue" him from whatever prison they put him in.

2. Kill him, and he becomes a martyr.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a lose-lose situation.

I think he should have been tried at the Hague- as Milocevic was. I imagine the Coalition powers nixed that because they didn't want their own misdeeds paraded on the international stage- as would have happened if Saddam had been granted a proper defence.