Kick the Football, Charlie Brown!

We know Charlie Brown will protest and stress, just as we know Lucy will swipe away the football at the last minute. The LATimes apparently hasn't learned that second part yet.

Sunday's front page was adorned with In Iraq, A Case Without Precedence, a lengthy hand-wringer about the upcoming Saddam Hussein trial. Jim Daniszewski, who's name appears frequently and negatively in CSM, writes:

In the glare of world opinion, the court will be on trial, [in addition to Hussein].

Few dispute the role of Hussein and his cohorts in the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shiites. But many have questioned whether a court created under foreign occupation and held inside Iraq in the midst of an insurgency will be able to give a fair and universally accepted verdict.

International human rights experts insist they want the tribunal to succeed but question whether the court, as currently constituted, will be up to the task.

If Daniszewki could find anyone, anywhere, who disputes the role of Hussein in the murders he didn't share them with us, so why include that sentence? Is he so blinded by the "Well, we sold him weapons" uselessness that he dares to go there? And these international human rights advocates? Where were they when Saddam was in power? Where were they when we took him out?

Worse, the entire story is racist, fretting that the Iraqi people, who so far have found themselves quite capable of rising to the challenges of regime change, will somehow be incapbable of doing something as complex as running a trial. After all, Daniszewski opines, they haven't had a chance to run a trial for 40 years, so how could they possibly do it right.

We offer up as evidence the US Supreme Court, that has had some ongoing involvement in this whole trial thing, yet still completely blew its recent death penalty for teens decision. We offer up a nation with no experience in running free elections, yet did a fine job of pulling one off on Jan. 30. We offer up ... oh, never mind.

Just keep this story on file, so when the trial goes splendidly, we can wave it in the LAT's face and laugh, just as we do every Thanksgiving morning when Charlie Brown lands, once again, flat on his back.