How Assholes Become Martyrs

By now, just about everyone who wants to see Saddam Hussein's execution has seen it online (once was enough for me, thank you). Most U.S. media outlets displayed cowardice in not airing cell phone footage of the hanging in full. Given all the lives and money that have been spent on this war without reason, I think Americans should be confronted with its graphic fruits.

This is what our president calls a "significant milestone" in bringing democracy to Iraq - executioners in ski masks killing in the name of a tiny god. In reality, the execution was nothing more than a Hatfield/McCoy-style vendetta killing. If the U.S. really cared about fairness, Saddam would've been turned over to a U.N. war crimes tribunal.

Just what the hell was the administration thinking when it handed Saddam over to an Iraqi government that is incapable of sustaining itself without kowtowing to Moktada al-Sadr? Was it Bush's thirst for revenge against the man who tried to kill his daddy? Or was it a ploy to prop up poll numbers before the Democratic Congress was sworn in? I honestly have no idea.

Saddam certainly got what he deserved, but his death does nothing to make us or the Iraqi people any safer or freer. George W. Bush better pray he never winds up on the business end of the vengeful justice his administration so clearly relishes.