Originally Posted by: aschlemanSo you think guys like Al Capone should have never been charged for tax evasion becuase it was the only thing that the government could PROVE that he did wrong...

Or are you saying that Sadaam shouldn't have been executed for ordering the murders of 148 (I'm sure he's ordered more)??

Despite all of our views on what real "justice" is... thousands upon thousands of criminals walk the streets every year because a prosecution lawyer could not come up with "sufficient" evidence to PROVE them guilty of the crimes they were charged with... Sadaam was a dictator in the very same light that Hitler was... No one cries for Hitler. Just because the crimes against humanity that Hitler committed were on a larger scale doesn't make the crimes that Sadaam comitted that much less grotesque...

He's dead... It doesn't really matter to me whether he's rotting in a jail cell or not but the one thing I'm sure we all can agree on is: He's dead...

The fact that he was tried for a capital offense (several counts of it) and those were the ones they could prove. He was found guilty and executed. Even if they were only able to prove that he ordered the death of one person and murder was a capital offense, he would have been executed. He was executed for the crime(s) for which he was found guilty. Period.

The families of the the thousands of others who were murdered never had their voice heard in court, this is true. It's sad but if you wait to try someone for multiple felony counts until you can prove each and every one beyond the shadow a doubt, he'll die of old age in prison. Then who gets justice? He would have still been jailed for the crimes for which he was charged. Not the thousands of others. They still would not have had their day in court.

Although unfair in a biblical sense (eye for an eye) they need to take solace in the fact that he was served the ultimate justice and paid the final price. He paid for the crimes for which he was convicted and for those he was never charged with. It's both fair and unfair at the same time.

And yes, we can agree that he is dead. And whether it be now or 20 years from now after spending his days being beaten and abused...the point is, the man who thought he was a God, the man who orchestrated the deaths of thousands, is dead. There's no going back.

And yet despite the fact that his regime was toppled and they found him hiding, filthy, wild-eyed and unshaven, in a hole in the ground, he was tried, convicted and executed, the US and her allies are still embroiled in a war where three thousand American soldiers and Lord only knows how many allied soldiers have died. Iraqi civilians are dying daily in this war and it will continue until someone, somewhere, wakes up and sees what is happening there.

Yes, Saddam is dead. On that we can agree.