Another Good Day for Iraq

Having lost, with flourishes, any argument that they might be competent at running an economy, defending their nation against its enemies, or helping its people in the face of natural disaster, the rulers of the free world have gone back to basics. Via their proxies in Iraq, they are using their one true talent and sentencing people to death. Saddam Hussein and two of his co-defendants have been given the death sentence by the kangaroo court, nominally over some murderous reprisals for an assassination attempt in 1982. Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants are not, after all, members of the United States armed forces.

The former US attorney general, Ramsey Clark, joined the illustrious list of those who have been thrown out of the courtroom when he handed the judge a memorandum calling the trial a travesty; but, in the interests of truth and justice, a White House spokesbeing said that today was a "good day for the Iraqi people". Some of the Iraqi people, who may possibly remember a time when the streets were safe and the electricity worked, are still uncivilised enough to disagree. The Secretary of State for Lesser Breeds, Margaret Beckett, observed that "Appalling crimes were committed by Saddam Hussein's regime", and that "It is right that those accused of such crimes against the Iraqi people should face Iraqi justice", so long as the accusations are made by the kind of people the Bush gang and its little helper can get along with.

Although the sentence will not be carried out immediately, except in the event of a lynching or other demonstration of spontaneous Republicanism, no doubt the sentence will help Americans feel better about the Iraq adventure as they await Diebold's correction of their votes in the midterm elections.