Mything The Point On Saddam Sentence

So Saddam Hussain, pending an appeal which could take some considerable time, has been sentenced to death in a trial which could at best be described as partial according to international legal experts. No doubt in the fullness of time President Talibani will swallow his personal belief that the death penalty is wrong and wash his hands of the affair, allowing a lesser official to sign the death warrant on Talibani's behalf. World opinion on both the trial and the sentence is divided.

Personally, I am in favor of the death penalty only in cases where there is no hope of remission so I will be happy to see Saddam do the Danny Deever. But that doesn't mean that I am happy about the way it has come about or need to support the invasion that caused it.

Yes, Saddam was a monster - was that enough?

Even Kuwait protested about the invasion, and they’d been invaded by Saddam not long before. Iran protested, yet had the most to gain. Every other U.S. ally in the region other than Israel, even though all disliked Saddam, stood aside and gave faint praise rather than welcome regime change. Why?

There is a major difference between pre-emptive and preventative war. While the former is still considered aggressive the latter opens a Pandora’s Box the likes of which one must needs look to the Roman Empire of old to justify. If tomorrow the U.S. decides that Jordan’s monarchical government is also not well suited to her people, does she have the right to overthrow that regime as well? Suppose the U.S. decides that Saudi Arabia is in need of “liberation?” Russia? China? Or that some other nation decides it should follow America’s example (I’m thinking Russia and Georgia as a possibility here)?

The point is that even though this argument was probably the strongest case the Bush administration could have made (and is now pretty much the only one, other than Cheney’s ravings), it is also one of the most flawed outside of a vacuum (i.e. when applied on a broad range in international politics).

The neocons are used to thinking in a vaccuum, as the whole Iraqi misadventure shows, and so ignore all this in preference for a lionization of preventative war. I wonder if they will now follow through on their words and demand invasions of Egypt, Kyrgyzstan and Pakistan - every one run by a "cowardly, brutal tyrant" and every one an ally of the Bush administration (Saddam got on pretty well with Bush's boys too at one time)? After all, haven't we always been told that we should clean our own house before trying to clean out someone else's? I won't be holding my breath.