Did Tookie Williams deserve to die

On December 13, 2005 a few minutes past mid night a well built, healthy man walked the last few hundred feet between his cell on Death Row at San Quentin and the excecution chamber. That Tookie Williams was a ruthless killer no one denies. That he had a violent youth in which a dissipated life careened out of control uder the influence of poverty and drugs too no one denies. He along with Raymond set up a violent street gang, Cripps, this too is a fact. And he killed four people in typical gang land style. Having said all this can we say that he deserved a chance to straighten out his lfe.I do not buy the theory of procecutorial misconduct during the course of the trial. That he was responsible for killing four young men is certain.After his trial, Tookie Williams had embarked upon the worthy course of warning Black youth of the dangers of gang warfare and drugs by writing a series of books. He also wrote his autobiography which explains the social context in which he grew up. A fatherless childhood and two children from two different women by the time he was 18, and an irresponsible attitude towards his children, made him seek the refuge in a gang. The gang is probably the one social group that provided a degree of self worth and then the drift into crime.It is not quite right to disscount the race factor in the debade on the Death Penalty. Tookie Williams was probed fro nearly 1 hour with hypodermic syringes before the vein to let the lethal mixture was found. This is ceratainly a cruel and unusual way of killing an individual, Further it took Mr Tookie Williams nearly 10 minutes to die. Some agony.The federal jusdes had reccomended clemency for Tookie Williams on the ground that he had behaved in an exemplary manner in the last half of his life. He died at the age of 52 for a crime committed at the age of 24. Obviously he was a completely different man to the callow youth who had done the horrible deeds.Can this factor not be the ground for mercy?

Did Tookie Williams deserve to die

On December 13, 2005 a few minutes past mid night a well built, healthy man walked the last few hundred feet between his cell on Death Row at San Quentin and the excecution chamber. That Tookie Williams was a ruthless killer no one denies. That he had a violent youth in which a dissipated life careened out of control uder the influence of poverty and drugs too no one denies. He along with Raymond set up a violent street gang, Cripps, this too is a fact. And he killed four people in typical gang land style. Having said all this can we say that he deserved a chance to straighten out his lfe.I do not buy the theory of procecutorial misconduct during the course of the trial. That he was responsible for killing four young men is certain.After his trial, Tookie Williams had embarked upon the worthy course of warning Black youth of the dangers of gang warfare and drugs by writing a series of books. He also wrote his autobiography which explains the social context in which he grew up. A fatherless childhood and two children from two different women by the time he was 18, and an irresponsible attitude towards his children, made him seek the refuge in a gang. The gang is probably the one social group that provided a degree of self worth and then the drift into crime.It is not quite right to disscount the race factor in the debade on the Death Penalty. Tookie Williams was probed fro nearly 1 hour with hypodermic syringes before the vein to let the lethal mixture was found. This is ceratainly a cruel and unusual way of killing an individual, Further it took Mr Tookie Williams nearly 10 minutes to die. Some agony.The federal jusdes had reccomended clemency for Tookie Williams on the ground that he had behaved in an exemplary manner in the last half of his life. He died at the age of 52 for a crime committed at the age of 24. Obviously he was a completely different man to the callow youth who had done the horrible deeds.Can this factor not be the ground for mercy?

USA IS LAWLESS ONCE AGAIN IS IT TIME FOR WAR CRIMES TRIAL

Under George II, the regime now in place in Washington DC has become a law unto itself. Even rougue states like Libya and North Korea did not ever attempt the blatant violations of International Law that has become the norm under the Bushmen. USA is not a party to the Internation Criminal Court of Justice. This perhahs explains the studied impunity with which the Bush regime has trampled upon the very core values of the international order. The illegal war in Iraq and themwanton use of banned chemical by US troops together with the Abu Gharais Prison scandal have exposed the utter lackmof idealism in the conduct of US fopreign policy. Not that the world was taken in by the faniful rhetoric of human rights, and freedom bandied about by Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. However a new depth has been plumbed in the present regime.The CIA has been caught running illegal,flights between Europe and the USA. THese flights were used to ferry suspected "terrorists" from Europe to the legal limbo of prisons located in US dependencies. It is well known that prisoners or for that matter any human being casnnot be transported across international borders without the explicit sanction of the host countries through which the men are being transported. In the exalted Blairdom of Tony and the goons of the Labour Party more than 200 such flights have landed and taken off. Now the little poodle has suddenly become wise and has started barking against his master: Tony Blair's "foreigh minister" has written to the Secretary of State Dr Condaleeza Rice asking for details about the "torture flights". My Lord we are shocked that our airports were being used for such nefarious purposes says Tony Blair feigning ignorance. It is quite another matter that by ignoring the American violation of British airspace, Blairdom has also violated the EU constitution. The USA uses euphemisms to gloss such terrible acts:"extraordinary renditions" describes the illegal transfer of prisoners to third countries wherein US torture experts can question illegally detained and captured prisoners. Even in the dark days of Nazi Germany such vicious acts were unknown. Germany's new Chancellor Angela Markel is likely to take up this matter with Rice when the Secretary of State visits Germany next month.Tony Blair claims that his regime was totally in the dark about what the US was up to. Even this poodle has begun to distance himself from the misdeeds of Bush and his Bushmen.Back to Iraq. Everyday the toll is rising and the much vaunted Iraqi security force is being dessimated in the barracks itself. Now it has been confirmed beyond a shadow od doubt that the US used White Phosphorous in Fallujah against unarmed non combatants. Pictures of burnt children have been published by a former US marine Jeff Englehart. The "embedded free press" does not cover war crimes in Iraq. In March 2005, the American army in house magazine Field Arillery gave specific details of the use of WP in Falujah. It goes without saying that the USA has violated the 1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons which bans the use of incendiary weapons like White Phosphorous. In the Rules of Engagemnet, an account of the Iraq war, the British general Tim Collins admits that he trained troops in the use of WP. Now Saddam may have used chemical weapons against the Kurds, however in the Falklands War, the Anglo Saxon troops used WP against the Argentinians.It has also come to light that in the shock and awe attack on Bagdad in Narch 2003, the US used 'napalm'. With the tide of revulsion rising against the atrocities of trhe Bushmen it is time to CALL THE TROOPS HOME.