HAIL DUBYUS!

An Illustrated Guide to Mendacity and Folly in the Imperium Americanum

But Can You Believe A Puppet?

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(AP) Snow denies Saddam trial ‘scheming’

(AFP) Bush spurts toward campaign finish after Saddam verdict (Ah, I love that headline)

Granted Saddam is an evil tyrant who deserved the death penalty, but do we do the world any service by trying him in a kangaroo court? This should have been an international tribunal, not an Iraqi one, since there’s no way he could have gotten a fair trial in Iraq. One of the standard motions in America is the change of venue for someone who cannot obtain a fair trial in a given location. I put it that the Bush administration made another huge mistake in not forcing this trial to take place in an international court. Of course, that’s partly because the Bushies deny consistently the status of international proceedings, but it’s also because in an international court, Saddam could have mounted a true defence–and in doing so, exposed US involvement in his crimes going back to Reagan and Bush the first and involving Cheney and Rumsfeld. All in all, a sad day for the principles of justice.