Informed Speculation

…as I post this.  In a mere two hours, the judge in the Saddam Hussein trial is expected to convene the court and begin the multi-hour process of delivering a verdict.  In the event that I’m asleep when the verdict comes down, let me say this: I have a real hard time rooting for the death of another human being.  Nevertheless, certain people commit acts so heinous and barbaric that they have essentially forfeited their right to exist in our society.

Certainly, Saddam Hussein is one of these people.  So, yes, in this case, a death sentence is the only appropriate result…

UPDATE 8:37 a.m.: Yes, it truly happened at last: death by hanging.

An Iraqi special tribunal today convicted Saddam Hussein of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to death by hanging for the brutal repression of a Shiite town in the 1980s.

As the verdict was read, Mr. Hussein shouted, “Long live the people! Long live the Arab nation! Down with the spies!” He then chanted “God is great.” The chief judge, Raouf Rasheed Abdul Rahman, tried to calm Mr. Hussein down. “There’s no point,” Mr. Rahman said.

The five-judge panel, which heard more than nine months of testimony in the case, also issued death sentences for two of his seven co-defendants: Barzan Ibrahim al-Tikriti, Mr. Hussein’s half-brother, who was head of Iraq’s domestic intelligence agency; and Awad al-Bandar, president of Mr. Hussein’s revolutionary court.

For many Iraqis, the verdicts represented a moment of triumph and catharsis after decades of suffering under Mr. Hussein’s tyrannical rule.

Spontaneous celebrations broke out across Iraq in spite of an around-the-clock curfew imposed on the capital and other regions. Pistols and assault rifles were fired into the air across the capital and elsewhere in a common gesture of celebration. People flooded the streets of Sadr City, a Shiite bastion of Baghdad, whooping and dancing and sounding car horns. Even some Shiite police officers joined in the celebratory gunfire.

“I feel happy,” said a 31-year-old Shiite shop owner, who was smoking apple-flavored tobacco on the sidewalk in Karrada, an upscale neighborhood in central Baghdad. “I think he got his punishment. There was no Iraqi house that didn’t have damage because of Saddam Hussein.” Men and boys played soccer in the streets of the neighborhood, which was largely tranquil.

But in some predominantly Sunni Arab areas, the mood was one of anger and resentment. Immediately following the verdicts, fighting broke out between gunmen and the Iraqi Army in the Sunni neighborhood of Adhamiya in northeastern Baghdad, according to an Interior Ministry official. American forces swarmed the district, however, suppressing the violence, the official reported.

Fighting also erupted between supporters of Mr. Hussein and American troops near Bayji, north of Tikrit, Mr. Hussein’s birthplace and a bastion of support for the Sunni-led insurgency, according to witnesses there.

Iraqi and American security forces had been bracing for a violent reaction among Mr. Hussein’s armed supporters, who constitute a significant corps within the insurgency. A ban on cars and pedestrians was imposed in the capital and other areas, Iraq’s security forces were put on high alert and an American fighter plane circled high above the city throughout the day today.

In a national televised address, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki said his execution would not compare with “one drop of the blood” of the people who died opposing his rule. “The execution could partially appease the victims,” he continued. “The martyrs of Iraq now have the right to smile.”

Let us remember, as Iraq’s violence disappoints and disheartens us all, that the removal of Saddam, and now his pending execution, is a very big win for Iraq, its neighbors, and the world…