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June 24, 2007
It's Hanging Time
On March 16, 1988, during Operation Anfal (which, by the way, means "the spoils") an estimated 5,000 civilians were killed and 10,000 injured when Iraqi air forces bombarded Halabja, a predominantly Kurdish city in northeastern Iraq, with mustard and other poison gases.
Al Majid is called Chemical Ali because he decided the best way to solve the Kurdish rebellion was to gas them. He orchestrated the gassing of Kurdish villages carried out by low-flying helicopters with express orders to kill every living thing in the area, including plants and wildlife.
Two decades after the massacre, the people of Halabja still suffer from very high rates of serious diseases such as cancer, neurological disorders, birth defects and miscarriages. Saddam Hussein's chemical weapons attack on Halabja was not an isolated incident. It was part of a systematic campaign ordered by Saddam Hussein and led by his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid.
and now...
BAGHDAD -- Two decades after Iraq's military laid waste to Kurdish villages, the Iraqi High Tribunal on Sunday sentenced Ali Hassan al-Majid, known as "Chemical Ali," and two others to death for their roles in the bloody campaign against the restive ethnic minority.
Al-Majid, a cousin of executed former president Saddam Hussein, was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for ordering army and security services to use chemical weapons in an offensive said to have killed some 180,000 people during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
Posted by LindaSoG at June 24, 2007 08:51 AM
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Comments
This bastard will look good in a hemp necktie.
Posted by: Kevin M at June 24, 2007 10:06 AM
Opponents of capital punishment insist that no evidence exists to prove the deterrent value of permanently eliminating vicious or otherwise abhorrent assholes from society.
I have trouble understanding how recidivism would ever be a problem in the deceased miscreant community. Since the moments of their deaths, for example, such perpetrators of crimes against humanity as Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler, Hussein, and several others have failed utterly in any attempts to continue or recreate their misdeeds.
What's even harder for me to deal with is why anyone remains on death row in any state or federal prison for more than a few weeks. Anything more than 3 or 4 months seems completely illogical. Reducing murderers, rapists, traitors, drug pushers, and other anti-social subhumans to their basic $4.27 worth of ordinary chemicals and minerals would reduce also, however, the administrative burden on our already overcrowded judicial system, crowding in our overcrowded penal institutions, and the likelihood that any of those particular assholes would ever bother anyone again.
Posted by: eros total at June 24, 2007 01:30 PM
Dear eros: Both Fox and CNN posted the findings of several independent studies on the efficacy of capital punishment not two weeks ago. Estimates were that between 3 and 18 innocent people were saved for each convicted killer put to death.
My only gripe with capital punishment is the potential for racism, bias and the ubiquitous risk involving witness testimony. Other than that, and as an example the case of Tookie Williams, I say "BURN THEM!"
Woodrow F. Call and Augustus McCrae for President and Vice President!
Posted by: Kevin M at June 24, 2007 01:41 PM
The Iraqis do much better with their death row than we do. One appeal only, and if it fails the sentence is carried out in hours, not decades.
Posted by: TomR at June 24, 2007 01:49 PM