'Stop this man'

James Carroll lambastes George W. Bush and his failed Iraq policy in today's Boston Globe. Calling the president "a taunting killer," Carroll condemns the Administration's plan, to be unveiled tomorrow, to send even more troops to Iraq: "Bush is the impresario of unnecessary violence. America has followed him into the death chamber of this war, and now he wants us to believe that the way out is through more death."

Carroll rails against the chaotic and amateurish execution of Saddam Hussein, saying that the handling of the death sentence made "an absolute villain [into] an object of pity" and that it seemed like "an act of tribal revenge" rather than justice.

On the execution, I agree. What we need to remember here is that we are trying -- maybe crazily -- to instill justice and the rule of law into a country that has been run by a tyrant for decades. How does this execution -- seemingly rushed, with the criminal taunted and the video on the Internet -- advance our case? Leo McGarry, the chief of staff from The West Wing, may be a fictional character, but his pronouncement that, "The process matters more than the outcome," is a concept that has stuck with me and is applicable in this case.

I also agree with Carroll's feelings on Bush, who lied to gather support for the war and has a "fantasy now that an honorable outcome remains possible..." Chillingly, Carroll ends with a plea: "Stop this man."