Swingin' With Saddam

George W. Bush has finally gotten his way, and his puppets in Iraq have put to death the man who tried to kill his daddy -- and it only cost 3,000 American lives, as well as the lives of 655,000 Iraqis.

That seems fair, doesn't it?

The fact that Saddam richly deserved to be executed has kept many people from questioning the justice of his execution, but some -- ranging from Human Rights Watch to the Vatican -- have pointed out that the verdict, as well as the overly hasty way it was carried out, was more redolent of vengeance than justice.

Richard Dicker, director of Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that, "The test of a government's commitment to human rights is measured by the way it treats its worst offenders. History will judge these actions harshly."

The same AP piece quotes Curt Goering, senior deputy executive director of Amnesty International USA, as comparing the rush to death of Saddam's Shiite handlers with the more measured approach used by the Americans when they tried Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg after World War II. "We look back on the Nuremberg trials as a model. We're likely 60 years from now ... to see this as victor's justice."

According to the Los Angeles Times, Pope Benedict XVI, through a spokesman, said that the execution of Saddam was "tragic news … that risks feeding the spirit of revenge and sowing new violence."

Let's be honest about at least two things: 1) If anyone deserved to be executed for his crimes, Saddam Hussein did. I'm shedding no tears for him. But the fact is that: 2) His trial was not about justice. It was about Shiites getting revenge on a Sunni leader for his persecution of them over a period of 35 years.

It was about vengeance, not justice.

Another fact to keep in mind is that the specific charges for which Shiites killed Saddam amounted to less than 150 deaths (148 Shiite deaths, to be specific).

George W. Bush is responsible for 655,000 deaths in Iraq.

When will Bush be held to account for his crimes against humanity?

Tom Moran