So I see the speculation that Saddam Hussein might be sentenced the day before the election. So. Frikkin. What. All we have to is point out that the capture and trial of Saddam Hussein represents
THE MOST EXPENSIVE LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTION IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD. Feel safer today? Well punk, DO YA?
Sorry about lack of links and research but at this point, all should be common knowledge. The United States and its Coalition of the Willing (
i.e., Tony "Poodle" Blair) essentially invaded Iraq to enforce a U.N. resolution regarding Iraq's supposed forbidden pursuit of WMD's, an acronym that only entered the vernacular thanx to the Bushites.
Keep in mind this had all the honor and privilege of Scotland Yard arresting me in Mozambique for U.S. tax evasion. But it was still, fundamentally, a law enforcement activity. We know it wasn't an act of war because the 9/11 Authorization to Use Military Force served as a background to a Congressional authorization to use force against Iraq. At no time was the United States ever at war, legally, with Iraq. Hell, we're STILL not at war, despite a Republican congressman's (name escapes me) effort to declare one.
So it's one of those (in)famous U.S. "police actions" carried out through the military, like Korea and Vietnam--except the "aggressor" to the country under our protection was it's own government.
Saddam Hussein was a very bad man. I take it on faith that he paid suicide bombers to attack Israel, would have loved to obtain nuclear weaponry (no lack of such ambition in that region), had previously attacked a neighboring country without provocation, used chemical weapons against his own country's citizens, fought a long, bloody and inconclusive war with Iran, oppressed and tortured his citizenry--likely killing 100,000 during his regime, and probably turned another (just guessing here) 200,000 marshfolk into refugees by draining their homelands.
Bad, Bad man. Let's leave out that Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao, then the Gang of Four, and maybe a few others were worse. We went to war directly against only one of those, allied ourselves with another and were part of a U.N. shoot-em-up against a country that got support from a third. There were lots and lots of other bad men who ruled countries who we either liked or left alone pretty much, in terms of military force.
But that's beside the point. If it happens just before the election here, when Saddam Hussein is sentenced, we will have spent $340 billion, sustained nearly 3,000 military and civilian fatalities (maybe more--no one seems to have a handle on contractor deaths), endured 30,000 wounded military--some maimed for life, returned who knows how many service men and women to society with stress disorders, killed 600,000+ Iraqis, brought death and injury to hundreds of troops of other nations, created about a million Iraqi refugees, squandered additional billions in a botched and corrupt reconstruction, destroyed a country and an irreplaceable human heritage, lost every ounce of international diplomatic leverage we ever had from the HIGHEST POINT it had ever enjoyed (post-9/11), taken our eye of the ball so that North Korea developed nuclear weaponry, gutted our Constitution in the name of safety and security, and generally set our own citizenry against one another. Oh, and lest we forget, in an amazingly dangerous and inept effort at post-invasion justification, we published nuclear secrets for anyone who can read Arabic, point and click.
As the actor said, "Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"
We have lost blood, treasure, safety, law, honor and respect in almost immesurable degree.
But Saddam Hussein will be sentenced--in easily the most expensive law enforcement effort that ever was or will be.
Feel safer today? Well punk, do ya?