Hussein guilty, & so is GOP...

...of staging the verdict. It's been widely reported that the U.S. government (specifically the Pentagon) pushed for a quicker verdict/sentencing in the trial of Saddam Hussein, moving it up to November 5. Hmmm, I wonder why they did that?

I'll bet it takes about, oh, I dunno, less than 24 hours for Republicans to hit the campaign trail boasting that "Hussein is guilty of genocide, and we removed this evil dictator from power." Snore.

History shows that Hussein was largely a dictator in the 80s, when he was our dictator in his war vs. Iran. During that war, he gassed his own people as well as Iranians, and following Dessert Storm, he slaughtered thousands of Kurds during the Kurdish Uprisings. Of course, all of these facts were used to hype why we should go to war in 2003, and they will now be used to hype why he was found guilty.

We've been fed such a steady diet of bullshit about this war, it's hard to determine what's real anymore. We're now being told that Iraq is the front line of the War on Terrorism, and that's true. That's because we invaded the country. We're told that Al-Qaeda is in Iraq, and that's true, too. Again, because we're there, and the organization's members want to kill Americans. Well, tragically, Iraq is the place to find them.

The next 48 hours will no doubt be rife with self-congratulatory blarney from the Republican noise machine as they try to convince what I hope is a disbelieving public that we are now safe because of the Hussein verdict. In a way, I can't blame Republicans, since they have absolutely nothing else to run on - they might as well try the old stand-by - terrorism. Put another way, you could say they like to scare the shit out of Americans to vote for them. And that's not my political bias talking - Bush and Cheney have said so during this campaign. A sample from the October 29 edition of The New York Times:

Vice President Dick Cheney has charged that the Democrats' talk of withdrawing the troops from Iraq ''validates the strategy of the terrorists,'' and John Boehner, the House majority leader, had phrased the matter even more harshly, saying of the Democrats, ''I wonder if they're more interested in protecting the terrorists than they are in protecting the American people.''

The New York Times article goes on to detail how Snow defended Cheney's comments:

''Osama bin Laden has made it clear . . . if the United States is pushed from Iraq, it will be to the eternal humiliation of the United States,'' Snow said. ''Bin Laden drew the conclusion when we left Somalia that the Americans didn't have what it took to stick it out.'' He continued, ''So, as an objective assessment about the way in which bin Laden views the United States,'' Cheney's saying Democratic debates over Iraq withdrawal would strengthen terrorists ''is a true statement.''

Want a little more? Here's an article I found this morning on Salon.com:

Out on the campaign trail, Dick Cheney warns Republican audiences that Tuesday's election will have "enormous consequences" for the nation. The election, Cheney said last night in Colorado, "will determine whether this government remains firm and resolute in the war on terror, or falls into confusion, doubt, and indecision."

But, in the end, the public's unhappiness with how the war is being fought in Iraq matter little anyway, election be damned. More from Salon:

In an interview with ABC's "This Week," Cheney suggests that the election doesn't really matter because the White House is going to keep doing what it's doing in Iraq no matter what happens on Tuesday. Cheney vows to go "full-speed ahead" with the administration's Iraq strategy whatever the American public might think about it. Acknowledging that the war "may not be popular with the public," Cheney says that it "doesn't matter in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think is right. And that's exactly what we're doing. We're not running for office. We're doing what we think is right."

Anyone else wildly offended at Cheney's hubris and arrogance? I not really surprised, though. It's just Dick being a dick - I've grown used to it over these last six years. What Cheney fails to grasp is that the American people will have a say, on Tuesday, and if the Democrats retake even part of Congress, they will have a say on the war, too.

The GOP has gone back to the politics of smear and fear one too many times. Again, in a way, I can't blame them - it's delivered them many electoral triumphs.

But, this time it isn't working.