Mass Graves

Last week I went to hear Judge Raid speak on his experiences as the Chief Investigative Judge of the Iraqi High Tribunal that prosecuted Saddam Hussein for his crimes against Iraq's Kurdish minority. It was interesting to say the least. The highlight of the lecture was hearing about how the tribunal compiled all of the evidence against Hussein.

As with most things that I find interesting in my life, these interesting things ride on the coattails of irony.

So how did they "get" Saddam? When they started digging up all of the mass graves that Saddam buried the Kurds in, they found the murdered Kurds' national identification cards. Because of this, they were able to identify the bodies and prove that a targeted genocide had taken place.

Saddam and his army murdered thousands of Kurds by gassing them, shooting them, and burying the women and children alive. However Saddam's army didn't search the women thoroughly enough before they buried them because of their cultural beliefs. So the Kurdish mothers, grandmothers, daughters, and sisters-the women that Saddam buried alive were the very ones who would carry the evidence that would be used to convict Saddam.

*Stay tuned for a lesson on global hegemony from Bob the Builder.