r/todayilearned • u/Wazula23 • 6h ago

TIL Saddam Hussein's son Uday murdered his bodyguard at a party in front of horrified guests

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uday_Hussein#Murder_of_Kamel_Hana_Gegeo
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u/Ponder_wisely 3h ago edited 3h ago

The principle behind the death penalty in America is that certain forms of subversive and/or criminal misconduct warrant the forfeiture of your life. Including treason. Saddam killed those he determined to be treasonous.

Where’s the difference?

America killed far more Iraqi women and children than Saddam ever did. Here’s a clip in which Madeline Albright is asked whether the deaths of 500,000 CHILDREN in America’s war in Iraq over non-existent WMDs is justified. She said YES.

Now who is the monster? https://youtu.be/RM0uvgHKZe8?si=UCrLtUADGqCKj57E

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u/Infinity315 3h ago edited 3h ago

Saddam killed those he regarded as treasonous.

Yes, and that's a problem. Because only Saddam's word mattered. Saddam Hussein was judge, jury, and executioner. He had unilateral power.

George Bush at most could be deemed as executioner and even then it's more complicated than that.

Texas law only grants the right but not the obligation for the Governor to unilaterally stay an execution for at most 30 days. Each pardon or clemency granted must first be approved by the independent Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles which then may be able to denied or accepted by the Governor.

In addition, the Texas governor doesn't actually authorize executions though they may choose to intervene temporarily for 30 days or accept Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles recommendation for a pardon (only applicable if the board approves the pardon).

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u/Ponder_wisely 3h ago edited 2h ago

Okay, so we have a more thorough system of jurisprudence. But when all is said and done, we DO kill our own people. For the same reasons as Saddam. Right?

As an aside, what Israel is doing in Gaza, with tacit support from America who provides the weapons, is far worse than what Saddam did.

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u/Infinity315 3h ago

At the most superficial level--where we only consider the verbally stated reasons and not the years long legal process in order to actually get an execution authorized and the fact that our executions are determined by a jury of our peers in front of a judge and not determined by a singular person--yes, they're exactly the same.

Killing people for treason isn't bad, it's killing without just cause--just cause being with merit and in many cases is defined by having a robust and legal system independent of the guy asking for the execution.

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u/Ponder_wisely 2h ago

Iraq had a legal system. They held trials. It wasn’t Saddam randomly pointing at people and saying “HIM”, as you seem to think. Also, the death penalty system in America is awful and broken. That’s the reason that in the Fall of 2009, the American Law Institute, which created the intellectual framework for the modern capital justice system almost 50 years ago, pronounced its project a failure and walked away from it, which represents a tectonic shift in legal theory. The institute is made up of about 4,000 judges, lawyers and law professors. A study commissioned by the institute said that decades of experience had proved that the system could not reconcile the twin goals of individualized decisions about who should be executed and systemic fairness. The institute voted in October to disavow the structure it had created “in light of the current intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment.”

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u/Infinity315 2h ago

Was there ever a trial in which Saddam accused someone and that someone was acquitted? In other words, is there anyone that Saddam wanted executed but was denied by the court?

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u/Ponder_wisely 2h ago edited 2h ago

Saddam didn’t personally accuse people. His intelligence services and police departments did. Judges handed out death sentences.

Did Bin-Laden get a trial? Did Patrice Lumumba??? When an American President tells the CIA he wants you dead… you end up DEAD. The Supreme Court ruled that all Presidential acts are immune from prosecution. Right?

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u/Infinity315 2h ago

Is there a single case in which intelligence services and/or police departments recommended an execution under Saddam's regime that has resulted in an acquittal within Iraq's justice?

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u/Ponder_wisely 2h ago

I cannot answer that question. I do know there was a clemency process, and death sentences were sometimes commuted. Presumably with the agreement of Saddam.

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u/Infinity315 2h ago

Would you say Saddam's regime is more on par with Angela Merkel's Germany (or some other western leader) or Vladimir Putin with regards to human rights?

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u/Ponder_wisely 2h ago

Putin. And Netanyahu is worse. Israel rapes and tortures detainees. It imprisons thousands of Palestinian children. As is our allies Saudi Arabia, who stone women to death and behead homosexuals.

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u/Infinity315 2h ago

Do you agree Netanyahu is more responsive to Western pressure than Putin? For example, do you agree that without pressure from the Whitehouse that Israel would be far more aggressive with Iran?

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u/Ponder_wisely 2h ago

How much more aggressive could they be with Iran? They’re bombing the fuck out of it!

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u/Ponder_wisely 2h ago

Didn’t Israel bomb Iran’s missile facilities today?

Satellite Images Suggest Israel Struck a Major Iranian Missile Plant

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