In about two hours time from this writing, Saddam Hussein will be hanged for Crimes Against Humanity.

He will not be alone, he'll be hanged alongside two of his half-brothers for the same crimes. They will have hoods over their heads, and their hands bound behind their backs. If the world were a just place, they'd be able to have the gallows in a very public Baghdad square. Alas, they will surely die in a heavily secured secret location with very few eyes in the room.

To some this may seem to be a horrible, lonely, painful end to a life. However, it should be remembered the evil this particular life perpetrated on humanity.

• The use of poison gas and other war crimes against Iran and the Iranian people during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Iraq summarily executed thousands of Iranian prisoners of war as a matter of policy.
• The "Anfal" campaign in the late 1980's against the Iraqi Kurds, including the use of poison gas on cities. In one of the worst single mass killings in recent history, Iraq dropped chemical weapons on Halabja in 1988, in which as many as 5,000 people -- mostly civilians -- were killed.
• Crimes against humanity and war crimes arising out of Iraq's 1990-91 invasion and occupation of Kuwait.
• Crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against Iraqi Kurds in northern Iraq. This includes the destruction of over 3,000 villages. The Iraqi government's campaign of forced deportations of Kurdish and Turkomen families to southern Iraq has created approximately 900,000 internally displaced citizens throughout the country.
• Crimes against humanity and possibly genocide against Marsh Arabs and Shi'a Arabs in southern Iraq. Entire populations of villages have been forcibly expelled. Government forces have burned their houses and fields, demolished houses with bulldozers, and undertaken a deliberate campaign to drain and poison the marshes. Thousands of civilians have been summarily executed.
• Possible crimes against humanity for killings, ostensibly against political opponents, within Iraq.

These rotten bastards are getting off easy compared to the horrors they brought to the people they were supposed to protect.

Tomorrow morning Iraq will awaken to a better world, with a few found freedom. Will Iraq become a friendly country over night? Highly unlikely. But it will be a better place, and people will be able to feel more secure knowing that The Butcher of Baghdad was bagged and died.

God bless the freedom loving people of Iraq, and God damn anybody who stands in their way. See you in Hell Saddam!

Labels: Dead Dictators, democracy, Treason