Sic Semper Tyrannis

The hanging of Saddam Hussein will not magically put an end to the violence and turmoil that engulfs much of Iraq.

That straw man argument against executing Hussein ought never have been taken seriously, because Hussein's hanging was never meant to be a panacea, and no one seriously thought that it would be.

Nor does it lack some sort of nebulous legitimacy under international law, simply because the bien pensants of our day fear only this one form of death.

Hussein was accused, tried, defended, and ultimately judged by his own, for the crimes committed against his own.

In any event, his trial was not a mere trial of a common criminal, and to reduce it to such would reduce the horror and magnitude of the man's crimes against humanity.

His hanging was necessary to remove him as a symbol of further resistance and the possibility that he might be restored to power, to tyrannize his people further.

Some crimes are so great that the mere technical application of legal principle and process cannot adequately punish them.

His trial cannot be judged against the standards of ordinary criminal justice, because his were no ordinary crimes, he no ordinary criminal.

In that sense, his execution was inadequate, but the most that human justice can do to punish him.

Now he faces perfect justice.