Sunday, December 14, 2003

Justice or Circus?

Saddam’s been nabbed and I’ll have to admit I’m glad.  It’s big news, for the world, and its traveling as fast as the space shuttle orbits the earth or faster.  Since I first read the news about it this morning, the bombardment of filler stories has become so relentless they lay like cluster bombs.  The stories explode from every type of news source.  Boom, boom, boom.  You can almost feel the spin rotation developing into a vortex as the stories collide and reverberate, readying to suck us in.  But what about justice?

I typed saddam capture+criminal court into the Google search engine and already there are 101 stories available and the news has been on the wire for what, 18 hours?  The Iraqi’s want a trial in Iraq, and understandably so, but I’m sure we will hear calls for the Hague, the U.S., possibly France or an Arab nation.  Who knows who will throw their hat in the ring.  And it will be a circus ring.  The call of the big top is too alluring.

There will be clowns in the guise of juries and judges, and the lobbying for Ringmaster will be a show in and of itself.  Evidence, tired old tricks of Saddam’s, will be shown again and again, and though we’ve all seen the show too many times to count in the last twenty years, it will be presented as new and improved and with dog and ponies too.

Justice for Saddam should be swift and final.  Any “trial” held for Saddam will be mere window dressing.  Any verdict less than death will only be the result of the world’s “leaders” admitting to themselves they are only shades lighter in their desire to rule and an acknowledgement that Saddam’s fate could be theirs if they allow their avarice for power to continue to grow unabated.

Unfortunately, I think justice for Saddam will be slow.  It’ll be a circus.  The ticket office take is too tempting.  Let’s move on, there’s nothing to see here that hasn’t been shown to us time and time again, and there are more important things to do.

Posted by John Venlet on 12/14 at 06:55 PM
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