:: Captain's Personal Blog ::

Stardate: Tuesday, December 16, 2003

Saddam Insanity

Well, so we caught him. Fine. Good. Right?

In times like this I find myself increasingly unnerved by the questions that this has raised at work. Specifically the question of whether or not we should kill him. More importantly phrased "We would have been better off if the soldiers had just thrown a grenade down the whole and gotten it over with."

Why? Because it is felt that as long as he is alive he is a threat. The most immediate example of this being that Iraqis can use him as a bargaining chip in hostage situations, terrorist situations and the like.

The worst part to all this is that I can't decide what to think in the scenario. I know what I believe. We shouldn't kill him. That would be wrong. No matter what he's done, if we kill him he doesn't learn anything.

We can't torture him either, I suppose. It would make us no better than he is.

But if we let him live, there is a possibility that he could be a part of something even more terrible in the future.

The worst part about that is that it leads to some of the worst aspects of human nature. Specifically the belief that killing is an acceptable solution.

Let me also point out that killing can be a final solution, but not an acceptable solution. Meaning, if it is literally down to kill or be killed, you would probably have to kill. And people would not necessarily take you to task for it. But you shouldn't just accept that that was the best thing to do. There should always be another way out of a situation, and in an idyllic world you should be able to talk your way out of anything.

Ultimately, this post is sounding a bit whiny. Some would say I sound like a "bleeding-heart." I'm not. In war, you generally have to kill people. I understand that when you go to war, people die. It's the going to war in the first place that I have a problem with. Again, not taking sides on the war in Iraq, just my general feeling on war. I am glad that I did not have to make the decision to go to war, because I don't think I could have. Despite the fact that it very well have been the right choice. Again, I can't make that decision.

It just makes me bristle terribly when I hear someone coldly talking about pulling the trigger on someone else. When someone can freely talk about pulling the trigger on someone else (without any prior training), I get worried. Especially when they say it easily and without even the tug of conscience.

Even firing squads would fire simultaneously to absolve any singular marksman of blame for the death. No one should be THAT eager to pull the trigger.
:: J 9:04 AM [+] ::
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