I couldn't take his trial (nor, seemingly, could anyone else) seriously because the Iraq government as installed by the U.S. is a joke and a farce. You know, if the United States wanted to kill the guy, which is obvious with the puppet government's decree about Saddam's fate, why didn't they just assassinate him in the first place? I mean, they did it to Salvador Allende and subjected Chile to 17 years under Agosto Pinochet. The result of this war perpetuated by the U.S. is a pretty terrible civil war, so certainly the power vacuum of assassinating Saddam and his crazy sons wouldn't have been that much worse.

I'm generally against capital punishment in most cases, even with crazy fuckers who've killed tons of people, but I am generally for it in this case. With Iraq being in such chaos, there's no reason to leave a pretty terrible guy (convicted of, and with a record of atrocities) imprisoned with government instability. I mean, as instable as it is, he could eventually get out of prison and rule again, at least in theory. Besides, the U.S. might as well do something about Saddam while they're in the country sacrificing humans to capitalism. Couldn't they just wait long enough for the other trials to end? I mean, really?

But doesn't this just reek of political bullshit, killing a guy while he's still on trial for other crimes? NPR said his execution would be filmed for media consumption.

They didn't even do that for Timothy McVeigh, who was executed as a result of a conviction for a remarkably similar, albeit much closer to home, crime.