Shed No Tears

Saddam Hussein, the “Butcher of Baghdad,” is dead, executed for his bloodlust and resultant crimes against humanity. This is an historical event of no small moment. Assassinations and coups, followed by murder, as well as abdications and going into exile, are quite common, but when was the last time a former head of state was tried, convicted, and executed in accordance with the law of the land? And I don’t mean by a kangaroo court.

Hitler killed himself. Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Ho Chi Minh died in their beds. Mussolini and Ceacescu were simply killed.

Saddam Hussein deserves no kind words, no mourning. He was a sub-human animal, guilty of unspeakable acts of horror. I heard one man who investigated some of the mass graves found in Iraq say that 60% of the victims were women and children. Iraq actually had prisons just for children.

During Saddam’s reign of terror, people were tortured, thrown from buildings, fed feet first into shredders, and buried alive. He gassed the Kurds in Northern Iraq, which makes the Kurdish President of Iraq’s opposition to the death of Saddam all the more striking. Saddam murdered his own sons-in-law.

It is said that Saddam committed his first murder at the tender age of 8 or 9, and he raised his sons with the same disregard for life. Uday, who suffered serious injuries in an apparent assassination attempt, liked to pick young women at random to satisfy his sexual urges. When the family of one young woman complained, he had the young woman sent back to her family in a box, in pieces. The rape rooms of Saddam’s regime are well documented.

Why do such people exist? I think it’s because of the principle that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Yin and yang, if you prefer. For every good person, there is a bad person. And for every really good person, there is a really bad person.

Saddam Hussein was just such a person. He has begun his eternity in the hell he so richly deserves, alongside all the other bloody butchers of history.