Swift US justice closes Saddam chapter

"It was very quick. He died right away," said one Iraqi official who was a witness. "We heard his neck snap,” said another official. A videographer hired to record the execution said: “I saw fear. He was afraid.”

The photo right is from Al-Jazeera website, and read their story here.

This morning the US government (read: The Bush family) got what it wanted - Saddam Hussein was hanged to death at an undisclosed location.

It was a swift end for the former democratically elected president of Iraq. He was charged in a reformed Iraqi court for crimes against humanity for the killing of 148 of his fellow citizens in Dujail in 1982.

In November he was found guilty, on Tuesday his appeal dismissed and today, hanged.

US president says this is a turning point for the Iraqis. It’s funny that he should say that. After all it was his regime which undemocratically unseated Saddam in a 2003 invasion. The justification of the invasion itself remains highly doubtful, if not riddled with lies.

Then, in the name of democracy, a US-set up judiciary with US-trained Iraqi judges and lawyers tried Saddam for his crimes against humanity. The puppet Iraqi government was keen in the pursuit of orders from Washington to punish Saddam, the brutal dictator.

Saddam’s never recognised the court which tried him and till the end claimed that he was still the president and labelled the Americans as invading terrorists.

There is no peace in Iraq today - Sunnis and Shiites are engaged in sectarian violence and December becomes the deadliest month of 2006 for US troops in Iraq. December was also shaping up to be one of the worst months for Iraqi civilian death

Now with the most hated man by the Bush family gone, we can expect jubilation from the long suffering Shiites and the Kurds. At th same time, there will be reprisals from Saddam’s Sunni. It will also bring about some anger among the Arabs over the way the Americans have dictated the rule of law in their backyard.

The photo right shows how the pro-Bush media looks at the hanging. This is from the UK Sun, and their story is here.

But more importantly, lets just hope this execution will not allow Bush and his fellow backers to escape from their crimes against humanity in invading Iraq and then creating a civil war that has put the locals there in deeper trouble than before.

I am not a Saddam supporter but I think any form of punishment against his brutal regime should have come from the Iraqis themselves, at their own timetable, without the backing of an invading army that disregarded democracy and rule of law.