Good Riddance to Saddam

I'm glad the son of a bitch is dead. I can't think of anyone who deserved it more (although there are several other equally worthy candidates, in my view). But I find it interesting that Saddam was not executed for an atrocity such as gassing the Kurds in 1988. As Robert Scheer points out,

The irony here is that the crimes for which Saddam Hussein was convicted occurred before the United States, in the form of Donald Rumsfeld, embraced him. Those crimes were well known to have occurred 15 months before Rumsfeld visited Iraq to usher in an alliance between the United States and Saddam to defeat Iran.

The fact is that Saddam Hussein knew a great deal about the United States' role in Iraq, including deals made with Bush's father. This rush to execute him had the feel of a gangster silencing the key witness to a crime. [Emphasis added]

Indeed it did. There is so much that Saddam knew about the conservative Republicans who ran this country between 1981 and 1993 that you wonder what he took to the grave with him. The execution, while richly deserved, will forever prevent him from publicly testifying to these matters. Too bad.

I would have been really interested to hear a lot of his stories.