Denver Post Unseen Execution Spares the Mind By Diane Carman In
the 1960s and '70s, the Vietnam War was the original reality show. Night
afIter night around dinner time, Walter Cronkite would give the latest
report from the front. He'd show film of troops tumbling out of
helicopters, scrambling through rice paddies and confessing their
misgivings about their mission to reporters on the scene.
We
saw the images of villages destroyed and children maimed and Americans
bleeding from places where there used to be limbs. We saw the corrupt
South Vietnamese leaders and venal American politicians and the military
leaders who looked straight into the cameras and lied about enemy
casualties on national TV.
The reality was shocking.
Support for the war plummeted, not just among the young people who
faced the draft, but among their parents. These members of the so-called
"greatest generation" watched those news reports hoping to see heroism.
Instead they saw chaos and death.
It was a powerful lesson for future political leaders. If you want the
American people to support government policies that involve killing, never
let them see it.
It's one reason Timothy McVeigh's execution will be hidden from the
public.
Polls indicate Americans support the concept of capital punishment by
overwhelming numbers. An estimated 66 percent believe in the righteousness
of executing criminals convicted of murder.
So it's no coincidence that capital punishment is every politician's
favorite tough-on-crime policy. Even though we all know it does nothing to
prevent crime or to address the causes of crime, it wins elections.
Our leaders may be powerless when it comes to confronting urban
poverty, untreated mental illness, bigotry, anti-government extremism and
the wanton availability of firearms, but they feel almighty when it comes
to ordering an execution.
And they want us to feel good, too.
So the witnesses for the first federal execution since 1963 cq will be
a select group. On May 16, when McVeigh is strapped to the table for his
lethal injection, eight people will be watching from the galleries of the
federal prison at Terre Haute. McVeigh may invite up to three family
members, a spiritual adviser and two lawyers.
A closed-circuit television broadcast of the execution will be strictly
limited to survivors and family members of victims of the bombing in
Oklahoma City.
It's expected to provide closure and make them feel much better.
It's expected to be hugely popular across a country that was horrified
by the chilling brutality of the crime and McVeigh's utter lack of
remorse.
And since the Justice Department wants everything to go as planned, it
will maintain complete control of the message.
If we could turn on the TV and watch as the executioner pushed the
button and a man died in our living rooms, our response might not be so
easy to manage.
We might not appreciate the moment quite like we should. It might make
us uncomfortable.
It's so much better to have our reality carefully scripted by people
who know what's best for us.
That way we don't have to think about it at all.
Copyright © 2001. Denver Post. All rights reserved. saved from url: http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1002,53~22558,00.html
April 17, 2001
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