Saddam

ARI has written a few editorials and press releases bemoaning the injustice of granting Saddam a trial. If we accept that Saddam's guilt is evident to any objective observer, where do we draw the line. If I kill somebody in plain sight of several reliable witnesses, should I be executed immediately, without trial? Similarly, do we try every prisoner of war that we are currently holding at Gitmo? My initial answer to both of these questions, is no. So what is the rational middle ground here?

Post 1

Friday, May 19, 2006 - 10:47am

There does need to be some new rules set that tell us how to handle this - NO, it cannot be just trials the same as criminals get, but YES it also can't be throwing them in a hole and doing anything you want, either. The world needs a new process, and the US should spearhead it, get buy in from the annoying Euros and also China, India and Russa as well as Brazil. Sadam really should have gone to the Hague. It actually works for guys like him, and poor Iraq has no capacity for running a proper trial.

Post 2

Friday, May 19, 2006 - 11:48am

The world needs a new process, and the US should spearhead it, get buy in from the annoying Euros and also China, India and Russa as well as Brazil.

If the purpose is to achieve justice, and hold Saddam (or anyone else) responsible for rights violations, would you really want the input of China, a nation that flagrantly disregards the rights of its own citizens?

Post 3

Friday, May 19, 2006 - 2:43pm

It isn't a perfect world. We need to build from where they are to where we want them to be. Meanwhile, they have a stake too in the serious problems generated by countries that hold the oil and resources that they need more than the US does. Why would you want to shut out a country that 1) Has tremendous economic ties to you 2) Has an economic interest in the resources as much as we do 3) Has the potential to develop its own forces and become a rival 4) could just as easily become a partner who has more than enough manpower to help where the US does not, relieving a burden on our military. A Chinese partnership means our military can retain overall strategic supremacy (at a lower cost) while getting the boots on the ground to stabilize situations like Iraq, and instead of creating a rival creating a partner. China gets safety and prestige and continued economic growth.

In the end, do you doubt that the Chinese citizens will not get more and more freedoms? The leadership there is more like a single party rule autocracy and they are riding a tiger. They have to provide more and more concessions, and I predict by the mid 21st century we will see a China at least as free as Europe - my guess is slightly less of the speech freedoms but more economic freedom - and a strong partnership with the US. It basically is the US opportunity to squander or gain - create your own bogeyman rival or win by cooption. Too many conservatives and libertarions and objectivists seem to have so much belief in individualism and capitalism, but then never think they will win. Well it can and it will, don't doubt its ultimate power.

Post 4

Monday, May 22, 2006 - 1:30am

Jonathan wrote,

ARI has written a few editorials and press releases bemoaning the injustice of granting Saddam a trial. If we accept that Saddam's guilt is evident to any objective observer, where do we draw the line. If I kill somebody in plain sight of several reliable witnesses, should I be executed immediately, without trial? Similarly, do we try every prisoner of war that we are currently holding at Gitmo? My initial answer to both of these questions, is no. So what is the rational middle ground here?

We already had enough evidence to find him guilty. That's why we bombed the smithereens out of his palaces and the Republican Guard who were defending him, and that's why we bombed the bunker where we thought he was hiding. Now we're going to give him a trial, with a presumption of innocence and the possibility of acquittal?? Give me a break! This is war against another government; it isn't the maintenance of law and order and of legal procedure within an existing government. The soldiers that discovered him in that rat hole should have executed him on the spot. This show trial - and that's all it is - is nothing more than theater of the absurd.

- Bill

Post 5

Monday, May 22, 2006 - 6:20am

"If we accept that Saddam's guilt is evident to any objective observer, where do we draw the line. If I kill somebody in plain sight of several reliable witnesses, should I be executed immediately, without trial? Similarly, do we try every prisoner of war that we are currently holding at Gitmo?"

Saddam is far more obviously guilty than anyone in Gitmo - but he gets a trial while they simply disappear there to be held indefinitely. There is a double standard and right now it's completely backwards. Even though I oppose the invasion of Iraq, Saddam himself was clearly evil and deserved an 'Operation Wrath of God' type excercise dedicated to him.

Think of it this way - if someone had assassinated Hussein when he was leading Iraq, should they be held guilty of murder? I think any non-Baathist jury would rightly and rationally acquit such an assassin based on a combination of SH's past actions and a 3rd party defense argument.

Now that Saddam has been captured rather than killed and the trial is going on, unfortunately it would be terrible PR if his captors just decided to cut the trial short to execute him. However, should some random person in the trial audience take it upon themselves to finish Hussein before the trial completes, they'd be doing everyone a favor and shouldn't be found guilty of anything harsher than littering.

Post 6

Monday, May 22, 2006 - 2:47pm

In response to Kurt, I certainly don't advocate invading China and attempting to impose freedom on that country. I have two problems. The first is the hypocrisy of our government. Why do we sanction Cuba, but kiss China's (and Saudi Arabia's and Uzbekistan's) asses? I am not an expert on sanctions etc, but I gathered from your post that the best way to encourage the growth of freedom and capitalism in China, was to continue trading with them. I'll accept your assertion, which goes handily with my belief in free trade :-)! But I still don't believe that we should ever refrain from passing moral judgement on an evil dictatorship such as China. We shouldn't be afraid to assert that they are wrong and we are right.

Post 7

Monday, May 22, 2006 - 3:54pm

I think Cuba is far worse than China, but frankly the sanctions are counter-productive. Keep this in mind, how does a country move from Totalitarian towards freedom? It does not happen just like that - in many cases it starts with economic freedom and goes from there. You cannot be totalitarian and have economic freedom - you have to loosen up, and from there it becomes an inexorable process once it can reach a certain point. India is a good example of a country that had more political freedom, but remained 3rd world until it relaxed its economic authoritarianism. It is still in a similar process of moving in the right direction. As far as Cuba goes, wait until Fidel dies - he has to go soon - then meet whoever wins and re-establish ties. They will be on their way from there.

Post 8

Monday, May 22, 2006 - 5:45pm

Excellent points Kurt, but I still believe we should be extolling the virtues of capitalism and freedom in general. It seems to me, and I'm far from an expert, that our government is too quick to try and appease world opinion. I'm not saying we should invade or sanction anybody, I just want to hear one of our leaders assert the principles that this country was founded on. Would you agree?

Post 9

Monday, May 22, 2006 - 6:58pm

Of course.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006 - 7:41am

In line with that, you might wish to check out L. Neil Smith's book, HOPE, co-written with Aaron Zelman...

Post 11

Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - 5:16pm

So, if I can summarize the opinions I've heard here: Saddam is an evil bastard who should've been executed, but now that we've started a trial, we should finish it, although it could have been better. Let me know if this is innaccurate. I want to shift the focus to the detainees at Guantanamo. What should happen to them? Do they have a right to a trial or something similar? Do we have the right to detain them indefinitely and perhaps permanently?

Post 12

Wednesday, May 24, 2006 - 6:06pm

That's actually a really good summary. As for your Gitmo questions:

- Habeas corpus, and then either go to trial or go free.
- Yes, if there's even enough evidence to warrant that.
- Not yet.

Post 13

Thursday, May 25, 2006 - 4:45am

Good answer Aaron, but one more question. What happens if we decide to release some of these prisoners. I don't think anyone would favor setting them loose in the U.S., but what happens if no other country will take them? Similar situations have and are occurring with illegal aliens who commit minor crimes. When their sentence is up, we won't release them into the population, but their country of origin is unwilling to take them also. They end up being locked up forever, for shoplifting or something similarly petty.

Post 14

Thursday, May 25, 2006 - 7:06pm

Jonathan, a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. If he deserves to be released, because there are no legal grounds for keeping him locked up, then he is entitled to freedom of action, period. If no other country will take him, then he deserves to live as a free person within the United States.

The whole idea of "illegal aliens" is a disgrace in a supposedly free country like the U.S. Anyone who wants to come here should be allowed to, so long as he or she is willing to work. Everyone gains by this, including those Americans who lose their jobs to immigrants willing to work for lower wages. Competition, whether in business or in the labor market, raises everyone's standard of living, even those who suffer temporary losses from it.

The idea that we should not allow competition from immigrant labor because it lowers the wages of American workers is ridiculous. Competition between American workers drives down wages too; should we ban that as well? Of course not. Opposition to foreign immigrants is clearly xenophobic, yet all we're hearing lately is how we should tighten our borders to prevent Mexicans from coming here, the same Mexicans who are willing to work for wages that Americans refuse to accept.

And now the government is talking about imposing heavy penalties on businesses that hire illegal aliens. This is vicious nonsense. An American business that hires immigrant labor is doing everyone a favor - the workers it hires and the Americans who benefit from the lower prices that the cheap labor makes possible. Yet the thugs in our government want to throw these employers in jail for the just and benevolent act of offering an ambitious worker a job.

When I look at my government, I see the face of evil - the mentality of a bully; I'm embarrassed, saddened and humiliated by this awful spectacle of callous stupidity.

- Bill

Post 15

Thursday, May 25, 2006 - 8:40pm

"What happens if we decide to release some of these prisoners. I don't think anyone would favor setting them loose in the U.S., but what happens if no other country will take them?"

Is there anything wrong with the simple idea of putting something back where you found it? I believe most Gitmo prisoners were from Afghanistan and would be returned there; (that way a C130 bringing troops home could be full both directions too :) ). I imagine if the US turned each captive over to a northern Alliance warlord and said "We had this guy in Gitmo for the past 5 years" then there might be a problem. However, I'm talking more along the lines of letting someone (who there was likely no public record of ever being arrested in the first place) go in the hills with a good set of clothes and 10,000 afghanis in his pocket.

I'm curious to hear more your thoughts and where you're trying to go. You've posed a number of interesting ethical and political questions on rights, Gitmo, roads, etc. since joining. Are you new to objectivism and curious of its bounds or others' interpretations? An Objectivist who's had some specific questions or nagging doubts? I enjoy most of the ethical/political questions anyway, but would like to know where your interest lies in all these questions.

Post 16

Friday, May 26, 2006 - 9:48am

Bill, I wholeheartedly concur with everything you've said about immigration, and have been arguing these points myself to everyone I know.

Aaron, I knew it was only a matter of time before somebody got tired of me asking questions like a broken record ;-)! I'll summarize my introduction and involvement with objectivism. When I was 14 I read Atlas Shrugged. I found a used copy of it at the library, and bought it for $0.25. My Dad encouraged me to read it. I loved it, so I read The Fountainhead, and Anthem. I liked all the things I read, but it took me probably a year to rectify my religous beliefs with this new way of thinking. Ever since then I have been an atheist, logically. I thought I understood it fully, but I truly did not. I went to college, started drinking heavily and using drugs, and forgot all about objectivism, and eventually dropped out. Then about a year ago, (I'm 23, so this would be about 6 years after I first read Atlas), I had pulled out my copy of Atlas Shrugged, (why? can't really remember), with the intention of rereading Galt's speech. I decided I wanted to really learn more about Objectivism, so I purchased The Virtue of Selfishness. I read it, and I began to feel as if I was truly understanding. I then read Philosophy Who Needs It, Voice of Reason, For the New Intellectual, and I'm reading the Romantic Manifesto currently. I also began to visit the Ayn Rand Institute's website regularly. But it wasn't until I found this site that I had the opportunity to actually discuss these ideas with anyone. The questions I ask, are the questions that others have asked me that I was unable to answer, or questions that I have asked myself and been unable to resolve. I realize I haven't contributed much in the way of discussion, but I have been a little busy lately. Does that answer your question at all, or am I just rambling?

Post 17

Friday, May 26, 2006 - 3:42pm