REACT: The Saddam Insane … ooops … Hussein Circus

Okay … the Saddam “Insane” bit i a bit hooky, but I could not resist. I guess you can be a mysginist, misologist, misoneist, miso-whatever and still be technically sane.

In fact, watching the trial of the bad cad from Bagdad, you start to appreciate the sanity in the middle – you know the one that covers the heart of a phychopathic killer, but is clever and rational enough to perfectly play out the mad defendant.

As each day bring another example of Hussein’s trial-disrupting, message-sending outbursts, you have to question who is in control – and who is sane.

In an apparent attempt to show the world the new order(ly) judicial process in Iraq, the Iraqi leaders, under the guidance of the United States overseers, have made a terrific blunder. The highly publicized and televised trial is just what the middle east did not need. Forgive the Iraqis, but did the American advisors never hear of O. J. Simpson. They have made Hussein a catalyst for the terrorists and the recently disenfranchised followers of the Hussein’s Baath party. His whining about food, mistreatment and potty breaks are getting more sympathy than the victims of his Nazi like brutality.

At the time of his capture, I did not expect Hussein to make it to the jail alive. Well … maybe to the jail, where he would be severely “debriefed” and then fall victim of a jail house accident or an "official" suicide from a dozen shots to the head. But, nooooo. He survives all that only to be given the his biggest audience ever. Each day he is allowed to show his defiance and call his troops into terrorist action. He makes one political speech after another. The only difference between now and when he was in power is that he now gets more media attention when he speaks. Hussein is looking more like the head-of-state than the accused-of-state.

Of course, the many witnesses who attest to Hussein’s murderous ways get almost no attention in the press. He comes across more as the victim than the villain – especially among the Arabs and Muslims, who are quick to accept any accusation against the United States.

And what is the end game here? After a long and fair trail, the general anticipation is that Hussein will be executed. The way this is going, the dispatching Hussein to his 100 virgins will only create another event to stir the pot of lethal discontent. For growing numbers, his execution will not be the just consequence for an evil man, but the martyrdom of an Islamic hero. Even those who hated him in power will see Hussein as the personification of their own oppression.

Can you believe that sane people would have not foreseen this outcome? Is it possible to have full use of one’s faculties and still script such a counter productive scenario as this Hussein et al trail? And most importantly, is it too late for a credible … even modestly incredible … jail house accident?

My suggestions is to put Hussein and his co-defendants in a remote controlled U.S. military vehicle, festooned with reproductions of the famous Danish cartoons, and run the damn thing up and down the airport road a few times a day – until the inevitable happens.