Should Saddam be tried?

The Bostonian Exile asks an interesting question.

Quite simply, if the war was wrong, and if the U.S. occupation is wrong, then it's wrong for Saddam Hussein to be on trial. By all logic his overthrow was illegitimate and he should still be president.

Exile disowns the accompanying snark about anti-war dissenters being closet Saddam supporters but it's implied in the question (that he took from another site.) He deconstructs it down to a simple question of legitimacy. There's an interesting discussion in comments. I left this.

I think maybe you're all asking the wrong question. It doesn't matter what the US anti-war faction thinks, although I have to add that I don't know of a single person on the anti-war side who has come out in support of the man or his regime. That he is a "bad" man is evident but the world is full of bad men who rule countries and the "reasons" for singling him out were dubious at best.

That being said, I'm of the opinion that the trial is illegitimate in its present venue. It most assuredly should have been tried before the entity that Bush fears the most - an international criminal court.

The real question is what do the Iraqis think? While there may have been a different answer two years ago, judging from the rumors I've been seeing lately, there are growing numbers of Iraqis who want him back as president because although they were perhaps terrorized by his regime - at least they knew who to be afraid of and there was security in that knowledge.

In the present chaos that is the US occupation of Iraq, it's not so easy to tell friend from foe and death and destruction comes equally and as easily from both.

I'm thinking the longer the occupation lasts, the more the public in Iraq will question the legitimacy of the process and perhaps even the invasion itself.