In the course of this bizarre event, lawyers have been killed, judges threatened, law turned on its head, and Saddam himself allowed to cavort and declaim, becoming a figure of utter foolishness.

It is almost incomprehensible that, after hearing the stories from survivors of this madman’s torture and summary execution of his own people, anyone could deny that going into Iraq—for any reason whatsoever—was a good idea, if it removed this lunatic from any position of power. As Saddam pounds the table and stalks out of the courtroom, as he whines about how badly he’s being treated, as he asserts his continuing right to remain president of Iraq, he merely assures those who wanted him gone that they were right all along.

It’s hard to believe that this sorry little man once controlled the destinies of millions of people. It’s chilling that someone so clearly prone to abuse of power could, with his sons, embark on a reign of utter terror that lasted decades and was only ended by his own hubris. Had Saddam merely come clean and showed the inspectors that his WMDs had been dispensed with (if in fact that were the case), it is doubtful that the US or anyone else would ever have taken the step of removing him from office. Instead, he would probably have lived out his life, like Idi Amin Dada or Pol Pot, someday driven from power, perhaps, but never really brought to justice.

I urge you to pay close attention to this spectacle, as it is a window into not only the wicked soul of a man drunk with power, but also into the horror that was life in Iraq under Saddam’s regime. At the same time, in our nation, as so many continue to question why we fight, why we had to overthrow the dictator and why the Iraqi people were so desperate to be free (and why it is so hard for them to understand and embrace that freedom, even now), we must look hard at this man and the things he has done. We must see the face of evil, and see its consequence.

For it is both in the revelations that come through the testimony of this trial and in the debased condition in which the defendant finds himself that we learn vital lessons about human nature and the need for justice. Looking upon Saddam, as his eyes roll with disdain for the Court and its authority, we become no longer afraid of what he can do—only contemptuous of what he has done. In the clear light of justice, the man of shadows becomes just another power-crazed killer, no more deserving of the respect due a world leader, but only fit to be punished and put away, raised up no longer as a man of power, but merely as an example to be avoided.

Like his heavy and hideous statuary, Saddam has at last been toppled. Now we see how far the mighty can fall. And though he thinks he will escape man’s justice, it is in the process of being tried that he will truly face his punishment. For now, before all the people of the world—and even those that once were his people, Saddam is shackled, given orders, abased, and rebuked. The judges he once would have appointed himself now pass judgment on him. The once-quaking people of a now-free nation no longer need fear the knock in the night, the unexpected consignment to a dark prison cell, the capricious requests of a tyrant for unpaid and involuntary services.

Saddam the once-fierce torturer could, just a few years ago, have nonchalantly gouged out the eyes of the very people who now are permitted to stare at him with hatred, yet without fear. Day after day--as he babbles incoherently about power, as his rants try the patience of the world, as he ridiculously absents himself from a trial to which he refuses to submit—he becomes more and more small and foolish.

Eventually, this will all be over. Saddam may finally be punished in accordance with the deeds he has done. Regardless of the outcome, however, the trial has shown him up for what he was—a petty tyrant, mad with power—and what he now is: infamous, pathetic, and ultimately powerless.