I was pleased to discover this blog by Carlos Villareal, who works for the great National Lawyers Guild in San Francisco, and was a very good student here at Texas a few years back (and who was instrumental in re-establishing a student chapter of the NLG here at UT).  Here’s one striking item from his blog:

Fifty seven percent of Americans believe that Saddam Hussein should be executed IF he’s found guilty. I actually think this is pretty reasonable for a country that is supposedly solidly pro-death penalty and for a country that is regularly told (by the corporate media and Washington politicians) that Saddam was a modern-day Hitler. And it’s significant that the poll included a presumption of innocence by adding the "if found guilty" part.

Of course the same poll found that in other countries majorities supported life in prison over the death penalty for Saddam. The AP story had this interesting insight:

Public support for sending Saddam to prison for life was strongest in Spain and Italy, where seven in 10 favored a life sentence over death. A similar sentiment was expressed in Germany, where residents are still sensitive to the violence of the Nazis and Adolph Hitler during World War II.

Some might argue that this would make them more supportive of execution for tyrants like Saddam. But in this case most of the world sees the U.S. as the threat to humanity. Most never viewed the flawed, evil yet relatively powerless former Hussein regime as a serious threat.

No rational person in the U.S. did either, until the whole country fell through the looking-glass in 2002.