Iraqis shouldn't execute Hussein

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush has hailed the decision to hang former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein a “major achievement for Iraq’s young democracy and its constitutional government.”

Iraq’s democracy, if it can be called that, has resembled utter chaos in recent months and the Baghdad court’s ruling over a week ago is a further indicator that it is going to get worse in Iraq before it gets better.

While there is no denying that Hussein was a tyrannical ruler who is responsible for the death of thousands, I am not entirely convinced that his execution, by hanging or any other method, represents justice for the Iraqi people or international observers.

I tend to agree with European Union leaders from Finland who have requested that the murder-by-hanging verdict not reach fruition.

Hussein was found guilty of the 1982 killing of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail after a failed assassination attempt. Rather than separating themselves from the legacy of the former dictator, the Iraqi government is revealing its eagerness to perpetuate the cycle of legally sanctioned violence and death that has brought them up to this moment in their history.

In order to redefine the new government, Iraq should seize the opportunity to become an agent of positive change by not executing Hussein, countering a culture of fear and violence in the process.

If Hussein were to spend the rest of his life in prison, it would not give him the pleasure of being a martyr or dying in the limelight.

A quiet, lonely death behind bars may be a more just end to someone who has governed in a provocative and larger than life manner for nearly 24 years.

It seems like an exercise in humility would be more painful for Hussein than the threat of a noose.

This line of action would send a clear message to the general populace and the international community that Iraq is in fact attempting to become a more humane society, valuing life amidst a devastating war.

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists has estimated that the death toll in Iraq has reached 655,000 since the beginning of the war in 2003, according to the BBC.

More than enough blood has evidently been spilt and, as Americans, we should not endorse more casualties.

We should instead work to hold the Bush administration accountable for widespread human rights violations committed in the name of the War on Terror, including rampant civilian casualties in Iraq and the Abu Ghraid and Guantánamo Bay prison scandals.

Rather than praising the Iraqi Special Tribunal’s ruling, Bush should realize that he is supporting the execution of a man who has arguably killed far less people in his entire career as a brutal dictator than the Bush administration’s failed war is responsible for in the last three years.

If Bush were to hold himself up to the same standards he uses in judging others, the genocide of Iraqis may have ended years ago.

Unfortunately, more terror and destruction is on the horizon — a prediction that will become all the more likely if the bloodthirsty attitude preserved in Iraqi laws continues to rule as precedent.

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