[lit-ideas] Re: Saddam supporters vow revenge on US, Shi'ites

  • From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 13:00:25 -0800

My Vista didn't allow me to see the Video, but the court decreed that he be
hanged, because an execution is botched you can't later go back and call it
a lynching.  Many executions have been botched in the US.  People weren't
quite killed when hanged, Electricity failed to activate the chair.  No one
called these anything but what they were, executions prescribed by law.
You say "a lynching is not a judicial act that 'wasn't done quite right.'"
But consider the definition: 

 

From The Oxford Dictionary of English: "Lynch (of a group of people) kill
(someone) for an alleged offence without a legal trial, especially by
hanging."

 

By definition your interpretation is incorrect.  However bad it was done, it
was done in fulfillment of a court decision after a legal trial and
therefore not a lynching.

 

Lawrence

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Phil Enns
Sent: Tuesday, January 02, 2007 12:31 PM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Saddam supporters vow revenge on US, Shi'ites

 

Lawrence Helm wrote:

 

 

"Oh, it wasn't done quite right?  Try and do better next time then."

 

The situation is a bit more complex.  The Iraqi government is going to great

lengths to insist that the hanging was not an act of revenge, that is

extra-judicial, but the fulfillment of a judicial process.  However, from

what one sees in the video, it is hard not to think of a lynching performed

by a particular group within Iraqi society.  If the Iraqis lose confidence

in the judicial process as a relatively objective process, then there is no

'next time'.  The judicial process is only as effective as it appears to be,

and if it appears that there is no process but a rush to punish opponents,

then there is no rule of law in Iraq.

 

A lynching is not a judicial act that "wasn't done quite right".

 

 

Sincerely,

 

Phil Enns

Glen Haven, NS

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