"Chemical Ali" Butcher of Kurdistan Executed

On January 25, 2010, one less evil man walks the earth. Defiant and unremorseful to the end, Ali Hassan al-Majid, nicknamed "Chemical Ali" met his fate with the gallows. Sentenced to death by hanging last week, it was the 4th time he had been sentenced to die. No-one will weep for him.

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Majid, Saddam’s cousin and confidante, was executed a week after being convicted as the mastermind of a gas attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja in 1988 that killed more than 5,000 people, three-quarters of them women and children.

Considered one of the most ruthless of Saddam Hussein's sidekicks, all he did was shrug and shout "Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!" upon hearing his fate. This man who was directly responsible for thousands of deaths is going to be in for a rude awakening when he meets his Maker. God will not be pleased with him, regardless of his praises.

Infamous for his brutal ways of dealing with opponents, including the Kurdish minority in the north of Iraq and the Shia dissidents in the south, he orchestrated the mass killings and deportation of thousands. He cared less about what happened to the people he murdered and even less about what the international community might say about his actions. The following is a recorded conversation , that was heard during his trial, between Chemical Ali and top officials of the Baath party, extolling the use of chemical weapons:

I went to Sulaymaniyah and hit them with the special ammunition [i.e. chemical weapons]. That was my answer. We continued the deportations. I told the mustashars [village heads] that they might say that they like their villages and that they won't leave. I said I cannot let your village stay because I will attack it with chemical weapons. Then you and your family will die. You must leave right now. Because I cannot tell you the same day that I am going to attack with chemical weapons. I will kill them all with chemical weapons! Who is going to say anything? The international community? Fuck them! The international community and those who listen to them.

... This is my intention, and I want you to take serious note of it. As soon as we complete the deportations, we will start attacking them everywhere according to a systematic military plan. Even their strongholds. In our attacks we will take back one third or one half of what is under their control. If we can try to take two-thirds, then we will surround them in a small pocket and attack them with chemical weapons. I will not attack them with chemicals just one day, but I will continue to attack them with chemicals for fifteen days. Then I will announce that anyone who wishes to surrender with his gun will be allowed to do so. Anyone willing to come back is welcome, and those who do not return will be attacked again with new, destructive chemicals. I will not mention the name of the chemical because that is classified information. But I will say with new destructive weapons that will destroy you. So I will threaten them and motivate them to surrender.

In trying to purge Iraq of the Kurds, during the al Anfal campaign or what should be called a genocide, some 180,000 Kurds were killed, another 1.5 million or so deported, and approximately 4,000 villages destroyed. And that's not to mention the thousands upon thousands of Shiites that were killed.

Unlike Saddam Hussein's execution, Ali was afforded a pretty uncontroversial death.

Few details of the execution were disclosed, but government officials said Majid had been treated with greater decorum in his last moments than his cousin, who was hanged in 2006 amid catcalls and insults from his executioners.

“Everyone abided by the government’s instructions and the convicted was not subjected to any breach, chanting, abuse words or insults,” said Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government spokesman.

Not that he didn't deserve the same abuse heaped upon Saddam Hussein. After all Saddam Hussein and his family and cohorts did to the Iraqi people, it still amazes me that people question the Iraq war. Should we have left them to continue massacring thousands of Iraqi citizens? I guess some people think we should have.