Should Saddam Hussein Hang?

Ever since the announcement on November 5th that Saddam Hussein will hang for his crimes, there has been extreme difference of opinions [Duh. Big freakin' surprise, huh?]


I found this article at Answers.com:

[The notes in brackets are mine.]

"Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq from 1979 until 2003, has gained international notoriety for torturing and murdering thousands of his own people. [An example of torture was putting people feet first into wood chippers. I wouldn't wish that upon Saddam himself.] Hussein believes he ruled with an iron fist to keep his country, divided by ethnicity and religion, intact. [Pshh.] However, his actions bespeak a tyrannical despot who stopped at nothing to punish those who opposed him.

Having been captured, Saddam Hussein will now be tried for his past crimes. Though prosecutors have hundreds of crimes to choose from, these five are some of Hussein's most heinous.


1. Reprisal Against Dujail

On July 8, 1982, Saddam Hussein was visiting the town of Dujail (50 miles north of Baghdad) when a group of Dawa militants shot at his motorcade. In reprisal for this assassination attempt, the entire town was punished. More than 140 fighting-age men were apprehended and never heard from again. Approximately 1,500 other townspeople, including children, were rounded up and taken to prison, where many were tortured. After a year or more in prison, many were exiled to a southern desert camp. The town itself was destroyed; houses were bulldozed and orchards were demolished.

Though Saddam's reprisal against Dujail is considered one of his lesser-known crimes, it has been chosen as the first for which he will be tried.

["I'm invincible!!" - The Black Knight
"You're a loony." - King Arthur
(Monty Python and the Holy Grail)]


2. Anfal Campaign

Officially from February 23 to September 6, 1988 (but often thought to extend from March 1987 to May 1989), Saddam Hussein's regime carried out the Anfal (Arabic for "spoils") campaign against the large Kurdish population in northern Iraq. The purpose of the campaign was ostensibly to reassert Iraqi control over the area; however, the real goal was to permanently eliminate the Kurdish problem.

The campaign consisted of eight stages of assault, where up to 200,000 Iraqi troops attacked the area, rounded up civilians, and razed villages. Once rounded up, the civilians were divided into two groups: men from ages of about 13 to 70 and women, children, and elderly men. The men were then shot and buried in mass graves. The women, children, and elderly were taken to relocation camps where conditions were deplorable. In a few areas, especially areas that put up even a little resistance, everyone was killed.

Hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled the area, yet it is estimated that up to 182,000 were killed during the Anfal campaign. Many people consider the Anfal campaign an attempt at genocide.

[One source sited that this was an 'ethnic cleansing' of the Kurds. Nazis, anyone?]


3. Chemical Weapons Against Kurds

As early as April 1987, the Iraqis used chemical weapons to remove Kurds from their villages in northern Iraq during the Anfal campaign. It is estimated that chemical weapons were used on approximately 40 Kurdish villages, with the largest of these attacks occurring on March 16, 1988 against the Kurdish town of Halabja.

Beginning in the morning on March 16, 1988 and continuing all night, the Iraqis rained down volley after volley of bombs filled with a deadly mixture of mustard gas and nerve agents on Halabja. Immediate effects of the chemicals included blindness, vomiting, blisters, convulsions, and asphyxiation. Approximately 5,000 women, men, and children died within days of the attacks. Long-term effects included permanent blindness, cancer, and birth defects. An estimated 10,000 lived, but live daily with the disfigurement and sicknesses from the chemical weapons.

Saddam Hussein's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid was directly in charge of the chemical attacks against the Kurds, earning him the epithet, "Chemical Ali."

[And people complain about the police using excessive force when it is necessary.]


4. Invasion of Kuwait

On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops invaded the country of Kuwait. The invasion was induced by oil and a large war debt that Iraq owed Kuwait. The six-week, Persian Gulf War pushed Iraqi troops out of Kuwait in 1991. As the Iraqi troops retreated, they were ordered to light oil wells on fire. Over 700 oil wells were lit, burning over one billion barrels of oil and releasing dangerous pollutants into the air. Oil pipelines were also opened, releasing 10 million barrels of oil into the Gulf and tainting many water sources. The fires and the oil spill created a huge environmental disaster.

[Talk about not wanting to pay a tab.]


5. Shiite Uprising & the Marsh Arabs

At the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991, southern Shiites and northern Kurds rebelled against Hussein's regime. In retaliation, Iraq brutally suppressed the uprising, killing thousands of Shiites in southern Iraq.

As supposed punishment for supporting the Shiite rebellion in 1991, Saddam Hussein's regime killed thousands of Marsh Arabs, bulldozed their villages, and systematically ruined their way of life. The Marsh Arabs had lived for thousands of years in the marshlands located in southern Iraq until Iraq built a network of canals, dykes, and dams to divert water away from the marshes. The Marsh Arabs were forced to flee the area, their way of life decimated.

By 2002, satellite images showed only 7 to 10 percent of the marshlands left. Saddam Hussein is blamed for creating an environmental disaster."

[I'd blame him too. Talk about a God Complex. I told you he was crazy.]


And those are just five of them.


So the question still stands:

Should Saddam Hussein Hang?

For those of you who still think it is not just to hang [or kill, for that matter] him, here are a few questions to consider:

1. Are these the actions of a good man?

2. If he killed your entire city, including your entire family, all your friends and destroyed your entire life and the history of that city with no hope to be rebuilt, wouldn't you want him to die too?


For those of you who don't think he'll learn anything from hanging, I have two points to consider:

1. He'll either figure out that he's done wrong right before he hangs, or,

2. He'll, with no questions asked, figure it out after he hangs.

If he just goes to prison, do really think he's going to learn something? That he's going to have time to think about his actions in a prison with three square meals a day, a hot shower [don't drop the soap, Saddam...], a free library, high-speed internet, jobs, fresh clothing, and the chance to spread his thoughts onto other criminals? He had enough time to think about his actions in that dank, sweaty spider hole in Iraq.

Does this make any sense to you?

[I feel like I could write a book.]


I leave you with these words: Schwah.

The Bizzaro Hippie

[I'm going to have this reviewed by Aaron]