The Iraqi court is scheduled November 5 to deliver a verdict for Saddam Hussein over the killing of 148 Shi’ite Muslims in the village of Dujail, two days before mid-term elections in this country.  If he is found guilty, Saddam could go to the gallows.  So why would the court change its agenda based on the mid-term elections in the United States?  According to Mariam Karouny in Baghdad, “A guilty verdict could reflect positively on Bush as a vindication of his policy to overthrow Saddam in 2003.”  I’d like to think that Saddam’s conviction would be no small victory for the people of Iraq.  And being witnesses to how a functioning democratically-elected government of Iraq will administer justice, I just don’t see them delaying the announcement of the verdict one minute. 

We have been hearing for years that Iraq is ‘Bush’s war,’ so I say to the victor goes the spoils.  They can’t take credit for prosecuting this war because they’ve been consumed with fighting to defeat Bush because of the war.  I think I’ve said this before, but it bares repeating.  If it’s good for Bush, it’s bad for the democrats. 

A guilty verdict would be a correct verdict.  And it wouldn’t hurt Bush if it came down on Nov. 5.  Although Bush isn’t running for anything, the democrats’ anthem has been all anti-Iraq war, anti-war-on-terror, anti-Bush, all the time. 

Regardless of when the verdict is announced, the American people already understand which party is tough on terror, and which party wants to confer constitutional rights to enemy combatants.  That Saddam will be found guilty is, IMHO, a forgone conclusion. 

We’ve seen how events external to an election can flip the outcome, as in Spain.  So what kind of message does this send to the people of Iraq, trying to get things together over there, to find out that the other political party in the US wants to get out of Iraq at any cost, and leave them to the terrorists and death squads, and rape rooms, and torture rooms?   With friends like that, who needs enemies?  It makes being an ally of the US a risky venture at best.  Another message that is sent around the world.

It will be instructive to see the democrat leadership’s reaction to a guilty verdict, after years of defending him.  It’ll go something like this,  but you ‘haven’t got Osama yet, where’s Osama?’

BAGHDAD (Reuters) – A court trying Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity could delay its verdict by a few days, the chief prosecutor said on Sunday, in a move that would shift the announcement until after U.S. midterm elections. Read on 

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