Ding-dong, the witch is dead

Saddam Hussein, 69, executed by hanging in Iraq

So I awake this morning to reports of Saddam Hussein being hanged, and I'm not sure what to think. Sure he's a total douche of a scumbag and killed thousands upon thousands in not-so-nice fashion, and I totally expected this as the outcome of the whole thing - if anyone in this world deserves to be taken out, then he was definitely a prime candidate. I think the only people that would really dispute that fact are those that don't believe that capital punishment should ever be carried out under any circumstances, and I'm sure that for some if they were ever to make an exception he'd at least make the list of possible candidates.

There are some things with the whole situation that don't sit well with me though, and they definitely could've (and should've in my view) handled a few things much better than they did. First off, they executed him on the grounds of one incident of 150 or so Shias back in 1982, which means that the majority of the people who lost family due to atrocities carried out under his regime weren't fully given the recognition they deserved. I think that if they took him to trial for all the things he's done then not only would it have been more satisfying to a larger amount of Iraqis, but it would've also served to squelch some of the international backlash that is bound to rear its head as people worldwide start pointing their fingers back to the White House. It also would've been nice if he was tried in an international court instead of an Iraqi/US one so people can't complain about impartiality, even though I can't imagine anyone trying to argue that Hussein was actually an innocent little angel that didn't deserve whatever he got.

Another rather disturbing piece of news I saw along side of the whole Hussein thing was a recent John Hopkins study estimating that some 650,000 or so Iraqis have died since 2003, which averages out to about 500 people a day. Bush and Co. apparently don't accept the study, but both US and Iraqi governments appear unlikely to give alternate in depth studies any time soon. To me it's disturbing when they list Iraq casualties in terms of the US soldiers lost and discount all the others that die in the course of war. Of course they don't want to count the numbers of the dead among the opposition though... that would just remind them that they're human too. I think officially accepted numbers up to this point were somewhere between 30,000-45,000, which is still totally rediculous. The study says that of the people interviewed, deaths among those families are substantially higher now than they were before US involvement, and about 31% of the casualties can be directly attributed to US-led forces.

full article

Anyway you look at it, the whole situation has been poorly handled from the beginning - it's nothing but a damn bloodbath over there that we never should've been involved in.

Oh, and in other news: this guy is a total dork.