Surely the devil is figure skating on the River Styx today. And in other news I find myself agreeing with the Vatican on an issue. I've felt great sadness and even dread since learning of Saddam Hussein's ghastly and barbaric hanging. I've also felt some degree of embarrassment to be a citizen of one of the few remaining nations to engage in this bloodthirsty practice.
In denouncing the execution, The Vatican said that executing Saddam was nothing more than punishing a crime with a crime.
Indeed.
Rome believes that this is a time when we should be reconstructing justice in Iraq and doing everything possible to nurture reconciliation. Instead the United States has condoned and allowed an act that "might fuel the spirit of revenge and sow seeds of new violence."
Again, indeed.
And making matters even worse, I also dread the implications of murdering this dictator for crimes that are easily now equaled if not already surpassed by the current regime and by the United States itself. Only the most naive among us refuse to see that the wholesale kidnapping, torture and executions of thousands of Iraqi civilians is at least partly supported and organized by the American-created and backed "green-zone" regime.
Just days ago British troops raided an Iraqi police station where "prisoners" were being tortured and murdered. Barely a day goes by without reports of Iraqi civilians being taken from schools, universities and businesses by death squads wearing official uniforms and carrying American arms. Over a million Iraqi civilians are now living in refugee camps after having been evicted from their homes by militias operating under the orders of members of the current Iraqi parliament. As a result of the American invasion and the ensuing civil war, most of Iraq's middle and professional class has either been murdered or fled the country. And it is in this environment that Baghdad murders Saddam Hussein and calls it justice.
Speaking with a straight face from his remote and bizarre alternative universe, our President boasts: "Today, Saddam Hussein was executed after receiving a fair trial -- the kind of justice he denied the victims of his brutal regime.
"Fair trials were unimaginable under Saddam Hussein's tyrannical rule. It is a testament to the Iraqi people's resolve to move forward after decades of oppression that, despite his terrible crimes against his own people, Saddam Hussein received a fair trial. This would not have been possible without the Iraqi people's determination to create a society governed by the rule of law. "
The rule of law? Bush can look us in the face and describe the Iraq of here and now as a nation governed by the "rule of law?"
That Bush is one scary dude.
One can only slightly imagine the rage felt towards America by the average Iraqi. And while Iraqi's and Muslims in general may share Bush's taste for institutionalized murder, they most certainly must be horrified and outraged by the grotesque hypocrisy of American imposed "justice."