Letter: Iraq had no choice but to execute Saddam

Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2007 | 7:13 a.m.

The New York Times and some European nations condemn the execution of Saddam Hussein. Their high-minded condemnation is of capital punishment in general. They assert that capital punishment is morally as wrong as the crime it is intended to punish. I say it is not.

Capital punishment is society's ultimate justice for individuals who commit ultimate crimes. Equating society's punishment to the criminal's act undermines society's sense of morality and puts it at risk. Other "arguments" against capital punishment are mere rationalizations for this flawed and confused morality.

The argument that a human life is of infinite value is contradictory. Those who are squeamish about taking the life of a monstrous criminal should not be ambivalent toward ending the life of an unborn innocent. There is no contradiction, though, in the opposite view that innocents are to be protected, and the guilty are to be punished.

The argument that capital punishment does not deter capital crimes is specious. If deterrence were the justification for all punishments, then all punishments would be abolished because none of them deter the crimes they are intended to punish.

Saddam Hussein had to be held accountable for his crimes against Iraqi society and humanity. To shy away from the death penalty for confused moral reasons would have put Iraqi society at risk. Many have terrorized the country in hopes that Saddam and his criminal regime could be reinstated. His death removes that motivation. His execution was Iraq's only moral choice.

Richard D. McCord, Henderson