Should George W. Bush and Dick Cheney Hang Until Dead? Or, Would a Second 9/11 Have Been Preferable to an eight-year Bush-Cheney regime?

I'm not a crazy Fox News pundit. I'm not a right-wing whack job performance artist trying to sell books and using the tired old strategy of saying something so violently outrageous that I score some blips on a slow news day.

I have a functioning conscience, heart and brain. Unlike a Fox News pundit, I don't embody all the character flaws from The Wizard of Oz rolled into one. As a result, I don't sling around death wishes against people just because I disagree with them or just because I don't like them. If I did that then you would be reading about how anyone who likes that show The Hills should be boiled alive in acid.

My point is, it isn't every day and for the slightest infraction that I seriously request someone die or be executed. I'm giving you all this background so you know that it's a rare and exceptional event when I suggest that someone should go on trial for crimes where the penalty, if found guilty, include a death sentence.

Despite my hesitation to play armchair executioner, I find myself unable to escape the wish that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney be tried for crimes against humanity and if found guilty, they should hang just like Saddam Hussein. What crimes am I referring to? I guess with those two it would help to be more specific. I'm referring to the fact that Bush and Cheney deliberately deceived Congress and the American people in order to start a war with Iraq. There are a lot of other crimes those could be held to account for, but in my mind, starting a war is big enough to warrant a trial all on its own. All the other stuff? Supporting torture, ignoring the constitution, those can be additional charges.

The one thing the few remaining morons who still support Bush-Cheney fall back on is, "Well, have we been attacked lately? Has there been another 9/11?" No. There hasn't. I guess to a Bush-Cheney supporter, presidents get a one-massive-terror-attack mulligan, but no mulligans for lying about blowjobs.

No, there hasn't been a second 9/11, but given the choice between that and Bush-Cheney in power, a second 9/11 would have been much more preferable.

Let's compare. From 9/11, around 3,000 people died. Multiply by two, that's 6,000. That is far fewer people than have died in Iraq as of now: 4,221 Americans plus over 90,000 Iraqis (SOURCE: Iraq Body Count.)

The cost of 9/11 to the U.S. economy was, oh, let's overestimate it at $200 billion, though sources (Wikipedia, Naval Center for Contemporary Conflict) say it was less. Even doubled, that's still well below the debt we've been rammed into thanks to Bush and his policies: at least $700 billion.

Regarding lost jobs: a recent CNNMoney headline says, Jobless claims highest since Sept. 11 attacks, but that just refers to the number of new jobless claims over one week (the week of the article and the week following 9/11). When you add up how many total over the Bush-Cheney years, it's no surprise the article also states the number of unemployed in America is the highest since 1983.

I could go on and on and on, but I've seen enough. If you can't agree that a second 9/11 would have been preferable to eight years of Bush-Cheney, I understand. It sounds radical, but the facts support it. I don't mean to belittle the terror of 9/11 by wishing to live through it again, even though I only "lived through it" by seeing it on TV. I simply want to put it in perspective. It was one day, it was one horrible impact, but it is dwarfed by the sustained campaign of dismantling by malicious insiders over the course of eight years. The horror and fear brought about by Bush-Cheney will echo down the years and decades, and both you and I and every single other American are living through it, not just watching it on television.

Imagine the number that will die due to them being unable to afford medical care, or needing to work multiple jobs, or due to a failing infrastructure. Osama bin Laden put us all in direct, immediate harm, then vanished. Bush and Cheney have damaged our livelihood far worse for years to come. I'd like to see them held to account in some more meaningful way other than being mocked on The Daily Show.

This all leads to my request for their trial. See? I'm so unlike a Fox News pundit, I still can't just out and out call for their heads, as much as they deserve that. Let them go to trial. I'm confident they would be found guilty. Imagining it might happen, if they both hung, I wouldn't celebrate, but I'd understand it was necessary, for what they purposefully did to you, to me, to humanity, to our nation, and the generations to come.

To sacrifice two lives for the thousands of lives lost? That is not an act of revenge, but an act of justice.

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Larry Nocella is the author of the novel Where Did This Come From? available on Amazon. For more info, visit his website at http://www.larrynocella.com/.