Murder Not the Despot

From last week's Lode:

In what can hardly be a surprise, Saddam Hussein was recently sentenced to death by the Iraqis he once lorded over. Now defending Mr. Hussein is, in a word, indefensible. He was a cruel tyrant who killed many of his own people. That he was a light-weight by the dictatorial standards of the bloodbath that was the twentieth century is irrelevant; Saddam was guilty of crimes against humanity.

But does he deserve death? The short answer is an emphatic yes. By repeatedly and willfully taking the lives of his fellow human beings, Saddam's life ought to be forfeit. Yet more to the point, whatever his crimes, should he be hanged, that is to say murdered, by another human being, at the behest of the State? The question merits contemplation.

Representative of the natural law, which all rational people recognize as legitimate, the Fifth Commandment explicitly prohibits murder. The common translation, “Thou Shalt Not Kill”, is insufficient: killing is not immoral in cases of self-defense; murder is always so.

Now no one can, with any degree of intelligence or honesty, claim that Saddam will be hanged out of self-defense. There is no reason he cannot be kept behind bars for the rest of his miserable life. Hanging him may give closure and a superficial sense of justice, but the morality of such a decision resides on substantially shaky ground.

There is another reason to keep Hussein alive, which the poet John Milton captures nicely:

He that hath light within his own cleer brest
May sit i'th the center, and enjoy bright day
But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts
Benighted walks under the mid-day Sun;
Himself is his own dungeon.”

Paradoxically, while it is is immoral to kill him, it is more just to keep him alive.