I don't know. Someone explain the intuition.

I don't know. Someone explain the intuition.

I find it bewildering, intuitively. One moment they are asking for the empowerment of the fallen people of Iraq; hours of news on the Iraqi people usurp TV air time, there must be a restoration of autonomy in the government of Iraq. Lifes have been lost fighting to return that sovereign right back to the country. Then this autonomy provides a long but conclusive trial on Saddam and sentences him to death, along with his other 2 bigwigs in tow. But the very people who tried to restore the sovereignty of Iraq is condemning not only Saddam's death but trying to intervene and make the Iraqi government reverse its decision on Saddam's other henchmen.


Is the ability to exercise one's own decision not what liberalism fundamentally protects? Is there the West's own brand of liberalism?
Are you seeing why I'm bewildered intuitively? Possibly fathom why hypocracy surfaces in thinking about this? I'm trying to steer clear as much as possible from cynicism as much as possible. Worse, the West (they are generally the ones who wanted Saddam dead and now are the ones who are criticising it and death sentence etc.) are trying to use the UN to pressure for a reversal of the other two hangings of Saddam's accomplices. If the rationale is that this is a principled argument against the death sentence, can there also be a principled argument for the death sentence? Debators would agree with the latter. So why must one principal rule over the other with ubiquitous force when we are not a homogeneous people? Why must the liberals be so unliberal in their thinking, that they come across acting as ducks tripping over their feet? (one moment wanting Saddam dead, the next playing the benovelent saviour).

Liberalism seeks to protect the individual's liberty, and is not the capacity to make one's own decisions a part of that liberty? If yes, then the Western liberal world should at least start trying to even understand that there are possible rational circumstances when the death penalty may be applicable in certain countries. Principled disagreements are to be expected, but if one is a liberal, he/she must be liberal enough to respect the decision-making capacity of another individual no?

Honestly, think about this. I know I may not be totally appealing to the logic behind all this, it is just unnerving that I intuitively feel disconcerted over this, living in a Western society, brought up on Asian values and studying politics.

I don't know. Someone explain the intuition

Uncle T