Opinion
Hussein’s death will not advance U.S. goals for Iraq
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Also by Max Schlusselberg:
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- Landlord greed crosses boundary (October 12, 2007)
- Milwaukee gang rape exemplifies state's prison woes (September 14, 2007)
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- Internet lacks standard of decency (March 20, 2007)
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In response to Saddam Hussein's sentence to death by hanging, President Bush directed a number of encouraging words toward the feeble Iraqi government. He described the event as an essential benchmark to the shaky democracy and a symbolic end to the rule of a tyrant.
The eventual death of the former dictator is certainly a moot point for the Iraqi people at this place in time. In a country teetering on the brink of full-blown civil war, Saddam Hussein's death sentence will either have no impact or will be counterproductive in the fight to stop sectarian violence. It is obvious that the death of the former Sunni dictator will only please a rigid percentage of the Iraqi population. With a ruling that falls surprisingly close to mid-term elections — an occurrence that could very well be more of a planned event on behalf of the administration rather than a coincidence of timing — it easy to wonder how much of this final ruling is propaganda.
It is hard to find solace in the sentencing of Saddam and his cronies. It's great that an irrational dictator who was found responsible for the deaths of 148 innocent people, which took place 24 years ago, is finally going to pay for his crime. Yet, why is a man who is either indirectly or directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent victims not being put on trial? What are not only innocent Iraqis, but also young American servicemen losing their lives for?
The body count generated by the war in Iraq clearly proves that the war cannot be to the benefit of the Iraqi people. The country is marred by more violence, whether it is sectarian clashes or gang-related kidnappings, than it ever was under the rule of Saddam. This proves one of two things: Either the operation in Iraq was very poorly engineered and executed, or the invasion of Iraq was never intended to aid the Iraqi population. Whatever the intentions of the increasingly estranged Bush administration were, I'm personally not at all surprised.
Saddam is without a doubt a lunatic who carried out mass murder in the name of what he considered justice. It is a success to identify and stop a grotesque evil such as Saddam Hussein, but there would also be a sense of victory to the American people in identifying and rooting out a more pernicious and subtle evil. This is an evil that doesn't present itself as such and is allowed to operate through the indifference of its people, broken promises, fear mongering and boldfaced deceit. However, are followers of this evil doing so because they truly believe they are all marching together in the name of patriotism? Or are there, among them, factions who are conspiring toward a greater position of power and control over their fellow Americans? When did it become patriotic to secretly practice extreme rendition? When did the pursuit of liberty and freedom come to include torture and abuse? What happened to a government by the people and for the people? Have we become a nation of one person, one conviction, and one agenda that seeks to deafen its leaders and silence its people?
As we desperately try to forge democracy overseas, it is crucial not to lose focus on our own democracy. Have we entered a period of fear and intolerance that blinds us to the dysfunction and chaos within our own government? How many heinous acts will be carried out in the name of American freedom before the masses speak up? The signs of an increasing corruption of democracy are all apparent. These are things such as illegal wiretapping, the gagging of the press, a Congress that has become alienated from the people it is supposed to represent, and an administration that is awash in scandal. How can the suspension of habeas corpus, one of the most important parts of the American Constitution, be considered at all patriotic? How far will this very familiar evil go before it becomes irreversible? Americans who take pride in being democratic citizens, regardless of political affiliation, would do well to take counsel with themselves as to the true meaning of democracy. Voters should put aside their ideals regarding gay marriage, or fear of immigrants or even loyalty to a political party, and just simply vote for democracy. It is more important that personal agenda be put aside and more attention be given to what vote supports the true meaning of a democratic government.
Max Schlusselberg (schlusselber@wisc.edu) is a freshman majoring in journalism.
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I’m just glad Saddam will finally have to pay for what he did to us on 9/11. Kim Jong Il, you’re next; we know you were in on the plot too.
“the gagging of the press”?
Get over yourself… and stop drinking the bong water.
It was hard to find solace in the sentencing of Tojo and his Shinto-fascist cronies. It's great that genocidal militarists who were found responsible for the rape of Nanking finally paid for their crimes. Yet, why was Truman who was either indirectly or directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent victims at Hiroshima and Nagasaki not put on trial? What did not only innocent Japanese, but also young American servicemen lose their lives for?
/absurdity on stilts
Yeah, put Saddam back in power. He’ll clean up the Iran mess for us.
We could even let him take Kuwait (and Saudi Arabi too) so he’d have the bucks to take on the Iranians.
Bush I should never have pushed him out out Kuwait to begin with. It was this that was the seminal cause of 9-11. OBL was mad at the USA because we put troops in Saudi Arabi, before that he was our buddy.
Our government cannot “suspend” habeas corpus by denying it to people who have no right to it in the first place. The right against suspension of habeas corpus is found in the Constitution (art. I, 9). Constitutional rights belong only to Americans — that is, according to the Supreme Court, U.S. citizens and those aliens who, by lawfully weaving themselves into the fabric of our society, have become part of our national community (which is to say, lawful permanent resident aliens). To the contrary, aliens with no immigration status who are captured and held outside the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, and whose only connection to our country is to wage a barbaric war against it, do not have any rights, much less “basic rights,” under our Constitution. It would be the height of folly to confer additional rights on alien enemy combatant terrorists — which, by the way, would be far better rights than honorable alien enemy combatants who do not mass-murder civilians get under the Geneva Conventions — for no better reason than to prevent an abuse that is virtually inconceivable in the real world. Such thinking reflects the same September 10th mentality that gave us the Justice Department’s infamous “wall” — which prevented criminal investigators and national security agents from pooling threat information in order to forfend hypothetical and empirically unheard-of civil-rights violations. Been there done that.
Harry Truman a war criminal? What the hell side were you on in WWII? So you support nazis and their allies? Truman did not condemn the Japs to death, Emporer Hiroito did. The Japs signed their death sentence when they attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, or did you forget that? Or maybe the Japs signed their death sentence when they invaded China. What kind of filthy liberal values the life of an enemy over the life of an American citizen? The Japs were not innocent. The “civilians” worked in factories to build bombers. The children help make booby traps to stop the Allied invasion. On the other hand, the American Marines were innocent. The Axis started the war, we finished it. There’s an old American saying: Payback is a bitch.
Anonymous @ 9:57am: You’re either unfamiliar with /sarc tags… or completely impervious to irony.
Let’s try again, this time after actually reading Max’s paragraph 3.
It was hard to find solace in the sentencing of Hermann Göring. It's great that genocidal militarists who were found responsible for the Holocaust finally paid for their crimes. Yet, why was FDR who was either indirectly or directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent victims at Dresden not put on trial? What did not only innocent German, but also young American servicemen lose their lives for?
/absurdity on stilts (Take 2)
and yet another “opinion piece” that fails to make an opinion. note to max: stop ending all your sentences with question marks and don’t be afraid to take a stance on issues
Too bad all the world’s war criminals can’t be prosecuted … but then we all know that only the losers of wars and conflicts are targeted. May the gods have mercy on the good old USA.
“we all know that only the losers of wars and conflicts are targeted”
Another great reason to go for the win!
Saddam should not be killed, but displayed in a cage on the Mall, for all to throw garbage at, an object lesson to our enemies.
It was hard to find pity among Italians after Mussolini’s corpses was hung by a meat hook upside down in downtown Milan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:MussoliniePetacciaPiazzaleLoreto%2C1945.jpg
September 10th mentality. Isn’t that cute. Really, what changed on 9/11 was that we allowed our president to go off half-cocked and spread havoc around the world. If this was all about 9/11, Osama Bin Laden would be swinging from the gallow’s pole, not Saddam Hussein.
Iraq was never a threat as great as… say, the $1 Trillion of USA debt China owns. Thanks tax-break and spend conservatives. China, a communist country, could break our economy in the blink of an eye.
You need to do some serious research or is that no longer popular in journalism. I have seen more ignorant, biased, and just plain lying stuff in newspapers and on TV news. Too bad - journalism used to be a respected profession. I wouldn’t call it a profession anymore, it’s so biased.
You are very young and not very well educated and NOT very well read. And indoctrinated with the best of ‘em.
Why don’t you check into what soldiers are saying?
“China, a communist country, could break our economy in the blink of an eye.”
Ever hear the old saying that goes, if you owe the bank $1,000 it’s your problem, but if you owe the bank $1,000,000,000,000 it’s the bank’s problem.
Same situation here.
I do worry that someday China will wise up and stop sending us neat manufactured goods in return for pieces of paper.
comment’er at 4:55pm you are stupid - u have a sock for a brain.
The September 10th mentality is neither cute nor illusory. What changed on 9/11 was that America failed to confront the Leftist 5th-column Marxists as they conducted Krystalnaght-style, pro-terrorist street riots (euphemistically called “anti-war”)— chanting “Allahu Akbar” in view of our still smoldering Pentagon— and sowed the seeds of sedition and treason among blue state Defeatocrats. If this was really about 9/11, A-mad-dinnerjacket, Ass-odd, K-daffy and the odd assortment of Islamo-fascist state-sponsors of terrorism would be swinging alongside Saddam and Osama.
But it’s pretty clear after last night’s electoral results that 9/11 was insufficient to rouse the American people to confront these mass murdering forces of Islamo-fascism. America has once again fallen back to sleep. Welcome to September 10th again— and good luck with the Left’s plan for betraying our soldiers’ sacrifices in Iraq.