In my view, he was guilty of enormously horrific crimes - ones which were unconscionable. Still, we gave him neither a legitimate trial nor an honest chance for appeal: our rush to hang him was barbaric. Just as he was.
Like Kim Jong Il, Louis the XVI's policies bankrupted his people and led to widespread hunger in the country he ruled. It doesn't make me more fond of those who sent him to the guillotine.
The Tsars of Russia were responsible for unspeakable cruelty, both to their own people, and to those they conquered. The killing of Nicholas and Alexandra, with their children, in the basement where they were imprisoned, does not make me characterize the Bolsheviks as swell.
We had control over the hanging that happened tonight in Iraq. Are you more proud of the U.S.A? Are you safer and will you sleep better tonight? Have we increased respect for the U.S internationally today? Bush will proudly announce the hanging shortly. I will be ashamed.
I don't regret that Saddam does not exist tomorrow; I do mind that America is smaller tomorrow.
UPDATE
Josh Marshall said it way better. Please go here to read the whole thing.
This whole endeavor, from the very start, has been about taking tawdry, cheap acts and dressing them up in a papier-mache grandeur -- phony victory celebrations, ersatz democratization, reconstruction headed up by toadies, con artists and grifters. And this is no different. Hanging Saddam is easy. It's a job, for once, that these folks can actually see through to completion. So this execution, ironically and pathetically, becomes a stand-in for the failures, incompetence and general betrayal of country on every other front that President Bush has brought us.
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