(Dobbs) "Do they have to be killed? They have to be. And will be."
The right time to restore capital punishment in Russia?
The visceral and vengeful side of me is coming out.
When I read this morning that just two days after the terrorist massacre at the concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow, the four prime suspects were dragged into court with pretty obvious signs that they’d been beaten, maybe even tortured, I thought “good!”
Not “good” that they got what they deserve, because if they’re the ones who did it, they deserve far, far more. The latest report is that 137 bodies have been pulled from the ruins, and that doctors are "fighting for the lives” of more than a hundred more.
But “good” that they’ve apparently already had a small dose— an all-too-small dose— of their own medicine. Look at the four who’ve been charged with committing terrorist acts:
They are bruised, they are swollen. Pretty obviously the suspects’ wounds aren’t from the massacre. Evidently they were strong enough to escape, and when captured, were escaping from the country. Now though, one of them is in a wheelchair, covered with cuts, and looked only half-conscious in court.
Video seems to show that another, the one with the heavily bandaged ear, actually had that ear cut off.
If it’s true, you should remember that his victims suffered far worse than that.
It’s important to point out, these could be the wrong men. Catching them fast and hurting them bad could be a case of frontier justice. But from all appearances so far, it wasn’t frontier justice, it was just justice. That’s why, when I saw these guys, I thought “good.”
Interestingly, although capital punishment is legal in Russia, there hasn’t been a lawful execution there since 1996, when President Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, put a moratorium on the death penalty. Despite Putin’s bloodthirsty temperament, he hasn’t put it back on the books.
Of course that doesn’t mean that the terror suspects who right now would face life imprisonment still aren’t put to death. Putin’s political opponent Alexei Navalny suffered a suspicious death last month in a Siberian prison camp.
Whether Russia admits it or not, the death penalty was Navalny’s ultimate sentence.
So these killers in Moscow, who Putin today credibly called Islamic terrorists, might also die an unnatural death before their time. Either surreptitiously, or officially, because in the aftermath of the terror at the concert hall, legal executions might come back into practice. Putin’s hawkish ally Dmitry Medvedev— who once served as Russia’s president between Putin’s first and second full terms— said of the concert hall killers today, "Do they have to be killed? They have to be. And will be."
Putin himself went on TV and told his nation, “We will identify and punish everyone who stands behind the terrorists, who prepared this atrocity.”
It’s the one time, maybe ever, that I agree with him.
Over more than five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He also co-authored a book about the seminal year for baby boomers, called “1969: Are You Still Listening?” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 37-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
"In Leviticus 16 we see the brilliant ritualization of what we now call scapegoating, and we should indeed feel sorry for the demonized goat. On the Day of Atonement, a priest laid hands on an “escaping” goat, placing all the sins of the Israelites from the previous year onto the animal. Then the goat was taken out into the wilderness and left there. And the people went home rejoicing, just as European Christians did after burning a supposed heretic at the stake or white Americans did after the lynching of Black men. Whenever the “sinner” is excluded, our ego is delighted and feels relieved and safe—for a while at least. Usually, the illusion only deepens and becomes catatonic, conditioned, and repetitive—because of course, scapegoating did not really work to eliminate the evil in the first place." Richard Rohr, Center For Action and Contemplation
Well said Greg… but expect for many many more such bloodbaths