Thug, gangster, fascist leader of the Baath dictatorship,
Saddam Hussein has had his life ended courtesy
of a snapped neck at the end of an executioner's
rope. The man, who almost certainly began his
political life as an agent of the CIA while an
exile in Cairo, should not be mourned. The Rushdie
maxim holds good: when tyrants fall only hypocrites
grieve. His malodorous presence no longer pollutes
humankind. The world is a better place for his
absence. But even that achievement is undermined
through the calculatedly gratuitous manner of
his death.
A
state should of course be licensed to kill in
explicitly prescribed and heavily circumscribed
circumstances. The right not to be killed is never
absolute in the sense that the right not to be
tortured, raped or enslaved is; although US dilution
of the right not to be tortured blurs the distinction
somewhat. A state's legal right to kill is merely
an element in the panoply of coercive measures
that is essential to the functioning of any society.
The more humane a society the greater is the inhibition
against the exercise of that lethal right. Nevertheless,
were there no circumstances in which the state
could kill, then Emerson's notion that one indispensable
function of government, the necessary coercion
of thugs, would become redundant. When those in
the service of the state are confronted by a life
threatening situation, the neutralisation of which
is impossible without the application of lethal
force, there are few who would demand that murder
charges be brought against those state officials
who killed.
But
outside the context of war, and in the realm of
military operations, the state's right to kill
either its perceived enemies or its citizens should
never be permitted in a cold blooded and premeditated
fashion. A state killing should be the preventive
measure of last resort not the ultimate post-crime
sanction against offenders. Capital punishment
violates this principle.
The
killing of Saddam had something of the vindictive
and vengeful to it. Like Glasgow gangster killings
it was up close and personal. Although clearly
guilty, in the interests of natural law his trial
for crimes against humanity should never have
taken place in Iraq where not only were the verdict
and sentence foregone conclusions but the concept
of due process has been contaminated by the virus
of prejudice. Other tyrants like Milosevic and
Kambanda, were removed from the scenes of their
crimes and tried in international criminal tribunals
in either The Hague or Arusha, where the prospects
for fairer proceedings were enhanced. While few
would query the verdict on Saddam the US insisted
on a trial in Iraq because it knew it would deliver
the sentencing outcome it wanted, allowing President
Bush a certain vicarious thrill.
Bush
claiming that Saddam had been held to account
must sound nauseating to the many who have survived
US war crimes over the years. Saddam was without
doubt a war criminal but his crimes were hardly
on the scale of Henry Kissinger's. Yet Kissinger
is feted as a statesman. Moreover, were Saddam's
atrocities against Shiites really any worse than
what Putin perpetrated on the Chechens? Yet, no
US demands to place the Russian leader in dock.
Margaret
Beckett, the British Foreign Secretary, is no
less wretched than Bush in her grovelling comments
on Saddam's execution meant to mirror his. The
government she serves had Pinochet in its hands
and determined that under no circumstances would
he be brought to account. And only recently has
it begun to initiate extradition proceedings against
war crimes suspects wanted in Rwanda. They, alongside
many other death merchants from the Hutu Power
movement, have been living in Britain for years
despite being suspected of involvement in a genocide
that makes Hussein's pale into insignificance.
There
may be a poetic justice in oppressed people being
able to inflict a comeuppance on their tormentor.
What Saddam received he had dished out many, many
times. Con Coughlin's biography of the despot
is replete with accounts of the executions of
Iraqi citizens that took place on his watch. The
unbearable angst of the self perceived omnipotent
dictator being forced to stand before the powerless
to face being rendered inanimate, must make for
a sweet taste in the mouths of those he terrified
for decades. Hence the joyous scenes that met
the tyrant's death. The tormented are rarely disposed
to outbursts of sympathy for their tormentor.
But
acquiescing in such a barbaric form of justice
is a grievous course for the wider international
community to follow. Failing to recognise the
manner in which such justice was engineered by
some of the most immoral forces on the planet
is the consequence of a moral cataract that ultimately
leads to a situation where the crimes of our friends
are rewarded and those of our enemies are punished.
Blinkered vision inflicts vengeance and does not
deliver justice.
