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It’s a rare day indeed when I agree with the Trotskyist turned Bush backer Christopher Hitchens. But when he writes, “The disgusting video of Saddam Hussein's last moments on the planet is more than a reminder of the inescapable barbarity of capital punishment and of the intelligible and conventional reasons why it should always be opposed,” it becomes one of those days.

If you watch that video, and I have, because I’m an idiot, it is inescapable the conclusion that Hitchens reaches – “To watch this abysmal spectacle as a neutral would be bad enough. To know that the U. S. government had even a silent, shamefaced part in it is to feel something well beyond embarrassment.”

He goes on to say a lot more, (including quoting my favorite author), but what he doesn’t mention is the anger I feel at our government for putting us through this spectacle from the beginning. When you take a dictator out and you want to go through the pretense of a trial, you cannot let him be tried by the supposedly impartial people who he tortured and slaughtered. It is complete folly. You have two choices – either you string him up right where you stand the instant you catch him and watch him slowly die before you, or you put him through a legitimate trial in a war crimes tribunal in Belgium. To put it another way, if I murder your family, you don’t get to sit on my jury.

While Saddam is no doubt guilty, and probably deserves the death penalty (which I am steadfastly against, whether it’s Saddam Hussein, Adolf Hitler, or people trying to choose their new cellphone ringtone on a crowded subway train), to put him up in a kangaroo court where the outcome is predetermined, and the only reason for which is to justify his murder ends up making me feel sorry for Saddam. And that just pisses me off!

This whole courtroom is out of order!