It didn't take long to confirm the wisdom of the Tao Te Ching, which says this about capital punishment (it is not all that it says, but it is a prominent aspect):
The Executioner's [i.e. Way's] killing is perennial, it's true.
But to undertake the killing yourself -
that's like trying to carve lumber for a master carpenter.
Try to carve lumber for a master carpenter
and you'll soon have blood on your hands.- Passage 75
In other words, death will come on its own terms, according to Way. If we take it upon ourselves to kill we will only regret the outcome.
And today we can see how the blood is already washing over our hands:
Enraged crowds protested the hanging of Saddam Hussein across Iraq’s Sunni heartland on Monday, as a mob in Samarra broke the locks off a bomb-damaged Shiite shrine and marched through carrying a mock coffin and a photo of the executed dictator.
The demonstration at the Golden Dome shrine, shattered in a bombing by Sunni extremists 10 months ago, suggests that many Sunni Arabs may now more actively support the small number of Sunni militants fighting the country’s Shiite-dominated government....
Juan Cole interprets this as "very bad news." Like just about everything else the US has involved itself with in Iraq, the execution of Hussein has only made matters worse. And things will get even grimmer: the next move by Bush is almost certainly aimless escalation (packaged under the snappy brand name "surge"); aimless because it seems to be detached from any clear strategic goal. More troops for what? When will we know that we have "won"?
It's enough to make a Taoist out of any thoughtful person....
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