The Trial of the Century...

It seems there are a lot of trial-of-the-centurys these days. I can recall a few from the last century. My personal favorite would have to be the Scopes Trial. It seems to have been about a really strange law. Something you'd only fine in Tennessee, likely. Then there was the trial of the football player. A truly dreary affair that only served to aggravate the suspicion that the rich get tried, the poor go to jail.
So I saw Saddam Hussein on the teevee last night. I think he looked a little bit like George Carlin. Apologies to George if he is offended. Perhaps there's a new career in this for him. A Saddam impersonator.
Anyway, I saw Saddam on teevee last night, where an Iraqi court is getting ready to try him for an assortment of crimes. Nobody is certain what crimes to charge him with. I think being a brutal thug dictator would be an appropriate charge. But there's a problem in all this: I'm not sure if it's possible for a dictator to break his own laws. Still, I guess Iraq is going to pass some new laws. If they do this, maybe they can just pass a law making it illegal to be a former Iraqi dictator, and let it go at that. I don't know if it's still true, but it used to be in the United States, it was unconstitutional to make a law and then arrest someone for breaking the law before it was a law. It's called ex post facto, I think because lawyers like to make everything clear for the rest of us.
Well, it might turn out to have been a better idea to send Saddam to an international court, where they already have laws against being a brutal thug dictator (see Slobodan Milosevich, e.g.). There are those who don't like that idea, though, because they are afraid that the court will find Saddam guilty of invading a foreign country. If we find out that's illegal, it might reflect poorly on President Bush. Actually, there are a few United States Presidents who could have a problem with this. So, to avoid this difficulty, the United States has decided not to believe that international courts have any authority. But that an Iraqi court does.
I am really looking forward to the "open, fair trial" of Saddam Hussein, but I don't expect to see it before November.