Oh, the irony

The AP gives the background on the Dujail massacre which forms the subject matter of the current charge against Saddam Hussein. And this allegation, even more than most others which could be leveled at Saddam, is one which could equally fairly be leveled at Bushco for many of its own actions:

The events in Dujail began July 8, 1982, when Saddam and his entourage visited the farming community for a meeting with tribal leaders. The town was a stronghold of the Shiite Dawa party, which was staging terrorist attacks on Saddam's secular regime to protest his then-ongoing war with predominantly Shiite Iran.

Dawa believed the visit was a chance to strike back for the execution of its key figures, including a party founder, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Sadr.

As Saddam's motorcade entered town, Dawa gunmen opened fire from palm groves, triggering a gunbattle that lasted for hours. Iraqi army helicopter gunships and infantry rescued Saddam, who allegedly promised no reprisals.

But Iraqi secret police reportedly rounded up whole families, razed the town's fruit groves, destroyed houses and systematically executed nearly 150 people, some as young as 13. Others were herded off to prison...

(T)he Dawa party was widely perceived in the West as an instrument of the Iranian intelligence services. A year after Dujail, U.S. officials accused Dawa of bombing the American Embassy in Kuwait.

Now, nothing in the background does anything in the least to justify Hussein's actions. And it's a perfectly legitimate prosecutorial move to go forward on the strongest charges first, though the effect (especially if Saddam is put to death) may be to suppress the truth about much more serious charges.

The irony, though, is that the charge going forward is one based on action which mirrors Bush's mindset for the last four years. In effect, Saddam will likely be given a death sentence as punishment for a claim that he was entitled to exercise unlimited power in response to terrorism. A less shameless U.S. administration would at least have to stop and consider whether it should reconsider its self-professed entitlement to do the same.