Cohen: Let Saddam Live

[Manix]

<snip>

This column may be the most futile of my long career. I am about to plead for Saddam Hussein's life. I do so not because I have the slightest doubt that he is a killer, responsible for taking the lives of many thousands, but because sparing his life would send a message to the world that judicial death -- so often abused -- is no longer acceptable.

Such a day will come, no doubt about it. The death penalty is already illegal in most of Europe, and renunciation of it is required for admission to the European Union. Many other countries keep the death penalty on their books but have not had an execution in so long that the prospect of one is remote.

This, of course, is not the case in the United States. Here, the death penalty not only remains on the books but executions are common. Along with such pariah nations as Sudan, the United States still executes children (under 18) and the mentally feeble -- and, inevitably, the innocent.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10000-2003Dec17.html