Repercussions

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant." - remark attributed to Admiral Yamamoto Isoroku

Whether or not Yamamoto actually said this is a moot point now. What matters is that it is germane to this post about the repercussions of our judicial murder of Saddam Hussein.

Yes, the death penalty is referred to as judicial murder, so get used to the term.

And what happened in the gallows room at Baghdad was not justice, I'm afraid. One of the commenters over at Steve Gilliard's News Blog put his finger right on it - this was a lynching, nothing more nor less.

EVERYONE knew what the outcome of this would be - Saddam would die, pure and simple.

Now he's dead, and will be buried beside his sons on his tribe's territory near Tikrit. But what happens now?

To give you a hint, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt said about three years ago that if we killed Saddam it would "open the gates of Hell."

Lasciate ogni' speranza, voi ch'intrate.