In March, a group of American soldiers allegedly raped a teenage Iraqi girl and murdered her family. Now, they are facing the death penalty.
This is wrong. If the aim is to send a message that rape and murder are wrong, then killing more people is exactly the wrong way to do it. If found guilty, these war criminals should face lengthy sentences of imprisonment. But they should not in turn be murdered.
21 comments:
"If the aim is to send a message that rape and murder are wrong, then killing more people is exactly the wrong way to do it."
I disagree. This is an excellent way of sending the message that rape and murder are wrong.
You are right that no-one should face the death penalty for any crime, but the logic is flawed. This is bad, but it is not bad because it's a bad way of sending the message, it's just bad.
Posted by Graeme Edgeler : 9/06/2006 02:20:00 PM
I thought that bit went without saying. It's not about the pragmatics, but the ethics.
Posted by Idiot/Savant : 9/06/2006 02:28:00 PM
Simon Wiesenthal is reputed to have remarked that he was against capital punishment because it's too quick.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/06/2006 03:00:00 PM
One problem with jail as a form of punishment is that punishment is pretty subjective. To some jail it is nothing to worry about and to others it is like dying. Generally peaking the more essential the need to deter the person the less of a deterant it is.
Posted by Genius : 9/06/2006 03:27:00 PM
The state abrogates to itself rights (and responsibilities) that are not the same as pertain to the individual.
Perosnally I do not have the right to imprison you, yet the state does.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/06/2006 10:02:00 PM
I disagree I/S. There are some who need to be executed, such as the people who committed the "supreme international crime," a war of agression, containing "within itself the accumulated evil of the whole" (e.g soldiers rapping little girls and murdering familes) and who continue to run free, ensuring the death and suffering of millions more.
The Blairs and Cheneys of this world won't be brought to justice in a court so, unfortunately, they need to be assasinated.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/07/2006 10:54:00 AM
I agree with you Idiot. Murder is murder whether by an individual or a state.
As someone with a pro-life ethic from cradle to grave, it is consistent that I be against the death penalty. Besides which no one should have to have the job of being their executioner.
The other thing that the death penalty destroys is the hope of repentance and the possibility of rehabilitation.
Posted by Muerk : 9/07/2006 11:40:00 AM
We're on the same page here I/S, but for vastly different reasons.
Morally, I support capital punishment. Execution of a murderer or rapist is not murder, for the principle of justice requires that the punishment be proportionate to the crime - see here for a brief discussion of this.
However ... I'm opposed to capital punishment for one practical reason: there is no way to compensate a dead man who's later proved innocent.
There are almost countless cases of people being convicted of crimes that merit death, only to be released later after new evidence proves their guilt.
Given this, I prefer the concept of a genuine life sentence, without parole, home detention, or indeed any form of creature comforts beyond those required to sustain life: food, water, exercise and enough human contact to stay sane.
Posted by Duncan Bayne : 9/07/2006 01:02:00 PM
Anthony: I don't think even Bush and Blair (or Saddam Hussein, for that matter) deserve death. The humiliation of life imprisonment and the condemnation of history is perfectly sufficient.
Posted by Idiot/Savant : 9/07/2006 01:11:00 PM
While we're on this topic, next month is the World Day Against the Death Penalty; I'm open for guest columns for people who want to chime in.
This year's theme is "The Death Penalty: a Failure of Justice", highlighting the execution of innocent people, discrimination and unfair trials. I guess I'll need to start digging through old NZ death penalty cases to see if we killed any inocent people...
Posted by Idiot/Savant : 9/07/2006 01:14:00 PM
But you ignore my point as to why I think Cheny and Blair need to be assasinated. These people are not going to be put in prison.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/07/2006 07:12:00 PM
Anthony -
interestingly they probably don't feel the same about you, raising the question that maybe they should be asking themselves in other contexts "who is the monster?"
Posted by Genius : 9/07/2006 08:23:00 PM
Genius, the Cheneys and Blairs of this world think that everybody should follow their way of life and they are more than willing to utilise aggressive war and propaganda on a unprecedented scale with this objective in mind. I care very little for your privileged middle class moralising. I'm interested in the survival of the human race; an unrealistic objective with the Cheneys and the Blairs holding the levers of power.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/08/2006 09:37:00 AM
I/S: ignoring the pragmatic opposition to capital punishment (i.e. the fact that the innocent are frequently executed) - what is your ethical opposition to it?
Do you really think that someone who has wilfully raped or murdered others deserves to live? That it is just that such a person not be punished proportionally for his crimes?
Posted by Duncan Bayne : 9/08/2006 01:12:00 PM
I really wonder where such moral cretins as anthony spring from - please; if defending life is "middle class moralising", then let's have more of it. And how are you not of the same "middle class" which you condemn, you fool? I do so hate adolescent revolutionary chic. Grow up.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/08/2006 01:31:00 PM
1) from a "middle class moralising" perspective I wonder where your blood bath of world leadership would stop.
2) from a practical perspective I wonder if the countries of the world (eg the USA) would bow down and declare you a saint or if they would get all paranoid and take whatever action was required to prevent a monster like you ever doing it again.
Posted by Genius : 9/08/2006 07:13:00 PM
"1) from a "middle class moralising" perspective I wonder where your blood bath of world leadership would stop."
Do you wonder the same thing about the Cheneys and the Blairs? Let's just say it would be smaller than their blood bath.
"2) from a practical perspective I wonder if the countries of the world (eg the USA) would bow down and declare you a saint or if they would get all paranoid and take whatever action was required to prevent a monster like you ever doing it again."
Me? Heh. I didn't say I was going to do it. I can assure you I would be the wrong person.
In any case, from a practical perspective, I haven't seen anything from the western anti-war movement that approaches the historical achievements of assasination and militant resistance.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/10/2006 01:07:00 AM
> Do you wonder the same thing about the Cheneys and the Blairs?
It is a known risk/cost.
> I haven't seen anything from the western anti-war movement that approaches the historical achievements of assasination and militant resistance.
Depends on what you want to achieve. what do you want to achieve?
Posted by Genius : 9/10/2006 09:15:00 AM
Are you saying you know when Cheney's and Blair's blood bath will stop?
What would I like to see achieved? I've already said. I said it was unrealistic with the Cheney's and the Blair's in power.
Posted by Anonymous : 9/10/2006 10:16:00 AM
> Are you saying you know when Cheney's and Blair's blood bath will stop?
Pretty much.
> What would I like to see achieved? I've already said.
to use a metaphore, I think your trying to stop rain from falling by throwing it back into the air.
Bush, Cheney, Osama etc are all part of the system, as are you. Fixing the system requires more strategic a response than just killing them.
> I said it was unrealistic with the Cheney's and the Blair's in power.
Bush is out next election, so is Blair if not before. (At the moment I'd say conservative victory in UK and democrat in US - [hillary beats george allen] assuming republicans can't bring themselves to pick Mccain, Guliani or Rice [God help us if its Rice] and democrats put forward a sensible candidate).
In the mean time they almost certainly wont start any more major wars (cf my first point).
Posted by Genius : 9/10/2006 12:44:00 PM
Duncan: I'll flip that around; it's not a question of whether people deserve to live, but whether they deserve to die. And I don't think anyone does. And that goes for murderers as well as their victims.
Posted by Idiot/Savant : 9/10/2006 01:31:00 PM
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