Saddam's execution: Justice or revenge?

The verdict was read, he created a lot of hoopla, but Saddam Hussein, the former president of Iraq has been sentenced to death by hanging. Was it revenge? Was it justice? We shall never know. Being a Shia Muslim from a liberal family, I, personally, can say that the hanging of a tyrant is not the way to deliver justice. I've never been a fan of the death penalty, and that includes killing Saddam Hussein.

I also find that this is embarassing both for Iraq and for Saddam Hussein himself. It is embarassing for Iraq because through this ruling, of one of history's greatest tyrants, they still believe in the eye-for-an-eye rule. It is embarassing for Saddam Hussein simply because he has gone from feared leader to a simple criminal, albeit, a high profile criminal.

I find that there is US bias as well in this ruling. The judges were Shia Muslims. Saddam put the minority Sunnis in charge of almost everything and made the majority Shias suffer. Sunnis were given special privileges over the Shias. There's nothing bad about that other than the fact that both should be given equal status and nobody is above the law. If anything, the judgment should have been done by both Sunni and Shia judges and not someone that the US has trained in law and judging.

Saddam Hussein also held mock elections, which he considered real enough to run, was the only candidate running in the two elections before the war, and he won those both with 97% and 100% of the vote respectively. What gets me wondering is how does someone who is the only candidate running get 97% of the vote?

Finally, Saddam got the death penalty for one of the many massacres he committed against people. There is nothing about the Iran-Iraq war, where hundreds of thousands of young Iraqi and Iranian men were killed off. The gassing of the Kurds, that's a back issue. If anything, I believe that the leaders who gave Saddam weapons to commit atrocities against his, Iran's and Kuwait's people should be tried for criminal negligence. That list would include many notable names including Donald Rumsfeld and Ronald Reagan, who would be tried in absentia!

Hope you enjoyed reading this, keep on truckin'! I still don't know what the latter means!