An international court would have been better
The Herald, UK Your Letters
THE mass murderer, Saddam Hussein, is finally dead and buried. Unfortunately, a great deal of important information about man’s inhumanity to man was buried with him.
If he had been tried by an international court, as he should have been, then undoubtedly he would have been charged with the mass murder of the inhabitants of Halabja in March 1988. In which case the world would have got more details of this vicious crime. Including answers to some questions such as: was the poison gas used to kill the population supplied by the Americans; and did the British and the Americans encourage Saddam to attack Iran in the first place?
Of course, if he had faced an international court then he would not have been executed. Now I have no tears for Saddam and his fate, but I am against the death penalty in principle, and have been for many years. If one is opposed to something in principle, then there is, in my view, no possibility of accepting it on occasions when it is convenient.
The whole point of having a principled position is that one is obliged to stand by it in all circumstances even when it is inconvenient to do so. [more]