Saddam Hussein's left hand man, Tariq Aziz, was sentenced today to hang by the neck until dead by the Iraqi High Court. Poor Tariq, the guy is taking the fall for just
being there, when all those Kurds, and Shiite's were massacred. While sipping forbidden beverages with American diplomats, gas was being sprayed, heads being chopped, women being raped....all on his diplomatic watch. As a Thriller writer, my mind fast forwarded to the actual hanging: around midnight he'll be led up the wooden steps, a too large crowd of henchmen and helpers will be waiting for him, the hangman's knot dangling from a meat hook in the ceiling ( left over from Saddam's parties). Tariq , as a Christian, will cry out, "Allah Akbar, Death to the Infidels, Stay out the Bush's...." anything for a last minute reprieve. It's not to be. He shuffles forward, stubs a barefoot on a plank, looses his balance, free falls down twenty feet, breaking his neck. The Henchmen are enraged. Not to be cheated out of one of life's great pleasures,they carry his lifeless body back up to the scaffold, put the noose firmly about his neck, signal for all cell phone cameras to be turned on, smile big for CNN, and pull the handle.
So will end the life of another tyrant. I always thought he was a likable guy when being interviewed on American news shows, but what do I know, I'm just a bottom feeder Thriller writer.
