No country whose leader has already decided upon a punishment for Saddam Hussein gets to be part of the trial.
This is not because I in any way like the man. I just don't think it will look very good if he now goes before an American court, an American-picked tribunal, or even and American-approved Iraqi court, since Bush has publicly declared he deserves the death penalty. You just can't create the illusion of a fair trial after a comment like that. Maybe there are reasons that Hussein does not deserve a fair trial, but everyone else in the world deserves for him to have one. We must keep on believing that he does not reflect human nature as a whole. We need to know that we can provide justice for everyone, even if the accused has denied that same justice to others. The immorality of the accused should not be an excuse for immorality of the rest of humanity.
For the record, I am of the opinion that if he is found guilty (an outcome which no one seems to doubt), a more fitting penalty might be to throw him in solitary confinement in Devil's Island or some equally remote and inhosiptable prison until he dies in obscurity 30 or 40 years down the road. If he is executed now, he goes out at the top of his game, like John Kennedy or Marilyn Monroe. Let his star fizzle until his death is nothing more than a blip on the obit page, and don't allow him to be a martyr for any cause.
Any yes, I know that by my own rules I have now disqulified myself from the jury.
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