Job Openings

Now that I have completed the first draft of my play, done my familial duties and withdrawn seasonally from the baseball arena I have more than the usual amount of time on my hands, so I'm considering job opportunities out there. Something exciting and profitable, hopefully, with a professional edge. I've noticed that if I'm willing to go overseas there are some major openings available in Iraq. Wanted: courageous defense lawyers. High pay, major international exposure. Moderate danger of assassination.

I guess I'd first have to try a paralegal school, and if that's not to my liking, embark on a full-fledged bar application, which could take five to six years. And even with that, the job opening in the trial of Saddam Hussein would still be available. Serving in that Baghdad courtroom has become so dangerous it makes those guys driving nitro-laden trucks in "The Wages of Fear" seem as intrepid as telemarketers. A day in court has a body count similar to a day on "24." What a shame this doesn't have gavel-to-gavel TV coverage. As they say, when it bleeds it leads.

It's part of our national self-delusion to assume that, in the harrowing process of trying to make over an alien culture to resemble our popular democracy, the legal system there can handle so high-octane a trial as that of a powerful dictator who still has a significant, if scattered, support base. Saddam continues to act imperiously in the trial, behaving as though he is still the Head of State. This is cagey on his part, playing both sides of the plea. Either he is insane or still the Head of State, overthrown temporarily by a foreign invasion. He of course wil never admit he made mistakes (just like another Head of State with a vested interest in the dispositon of Iraq). In accordance with his presumed role he derides the legitimacy of a trial, even as the great majority of Iraqis would like to see him condemned (and a small minority would prefer he be restored so that they can have full-time electricity again).

Of course he has been a brutal dictator and a warmonger, if not the architect of 9/11 as President Cheney would insist. (Oops, I mean vice-president. Sure). Saddam's ego would never allow him to admit wrong-doing in the pursuit of stability and security in his country. Common sense would tell us that a few testimonies would prove his bloodthirsty guilt, and a sensible jury or tribunal could condemn him justifiably. But not if the attorneys and judges keep getting picked off, one by one. This is going to be a difficult conviction if we stipulate that the trial be conducted with all the checks and balances that you find in an honest American non-military court. Every week, with threats and counter-threats and intense security measures and fearful witnesses, there could be grounds for a mistrial. And you know that no one who has suffered under Saddam would accept his release or even an abbreviated prison sentence. He has to vanish from the scene, and I don't mean like Idi Amin or Lon Nol.

So the show must go on. Johnnie Cochran should consider himself lucky he's dead, or he'd be on first call. If the scimitar doesn't hit, you must acquit. Ramsey Clark is doing his damndest to help, traveling to Iraq to consult with the defendant himself. Hey, Ramsey, it's one thing to oppose an ill-considered war, another to coddle a megalomaniac. Don't consider running for office for a while--unless it's Mayor of Fallouja.

I hate to sound like Pat Robertson, but perhaps the only way to wiggle out of an endless fear and corruption-ridden trial would be for someone to whack Super Saddam. I mean, if security is so lame that you can't tell a Baathist sympathizer from an Iraqi policeman, someone ought to be able to sneak in a weapon to pop the putz. I mean, who would really complain? We have no international sympathizers anyway, the elements of a fair trial are impossible to sustain, and it would certainly cut the head off the snake of the Insurgency. Plus eliminate the nightmare forever from the neoCons that if we withdraw quickly from the morass of Iraq the populace may clamor for the strong leadership of the only person who could hold the three competing factions of Iraqi society in thrall. Hey, let's not forget the return of Juan Peron.

Okay, I'm only kidding, sorta, maybe. But why is it only the good leaders get assassinated? Gandhi, Lincoln, Kennedy, Rabin, Sadat? Life is so unfair. And Baghdad is not Nuremburg.