(U-WIRE) - The destroyed man who had his teeth examined on television screens across the world last month was a fallen leader, a shadow of the dictator whose statue U.S. forces toppled last April in Baghdad. The world community has united around a single demand that, not spurred by sympathy for the heartless mass murderer, comes from a higher conviction and faith in humanity: No matter what form his trial takes, they ask that Saddam Hussein not be given the death penalty.
This is one area in which world opinion should not be dismissed. All countries have a stake in ensuring humanitarian justice for those who challenge and attempt to subvert the forward march of human progress.
The world wants a trial that it says would only be fair with no possibility of death, and Bush, the leader of a country ready to exercise its will, is seeking death in an Iraqi court system.
One British newspaper captured the spirit of world resistance to the death penalty for Saddam: The last thing Iraq needs is another corpse - or another martyr.
But the possible death sentence Saddam could face could end up being the stick that forces the American occupation to grind to a halt in favor of a newly empowered Iraqi electorate.
For humanitarians, though, a new hope of seeing Iraq finally returned to self-rule springs out of the conflict, though most object at heart to killing the country's former dictator, following the rest of the world's views on justice.
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