the Shackle Report

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Baghdad, Iraq – Citing the need for the country to heal, the judge presiding over the trial of Saddam Hussein has ended the proceedings, and sentenced the former dictator to do community service in order to pay for his crimes, which include the murder of hundreds of thousands of his own citizens.

“We need closure!” screamed Hakim Hakim al Hakim, the presiding jurist in the case, while tearing at his hair and blowing spit bubbles. “Healing! We all need healing!”

The community service sentence is to extend for a period of not less than two consecutive lifetimes, and is to consist of acting as an expert consultant to the current Iraqi administration, and the coalition forces struggling to keep the country from collapsing into a full-scale civil war.

The ruling met with widespread approval. “I’m for it,” said Marine Corp. General Skip “the General” Majors. “You know, in hindsight, the biggest mistake we made after disbanding the Iraqi military was deposing Hussein. The man can do security like nobody’s business. He knows the ins and outs. He has his finger on the pulse of the country, which, I don’t need to tell you, is kind of weak right now. Also, he has his people dialed; he knows what they’re thinking, he knows what they’re going to do next. And, he has boots on the ground that really stay there right on the ground, whereas ours, sometimes they’re on the ground, sometimes they’re up in the air, sometimes people even take them off. You can’t quell an insurgency that way.”

As part of her own effort to give back to society what she coldly stole, Martha Stewart has offered to come in as an assistant to Mr. Hussein for the first of the two consecutive lifetimes he must serve.

“I may not have a lot of experience gassing people and torturing suspected dissidents, but I can come in handy shaming underlings and making the citizenry as a whole feel inferior, which is essential in running any country,” said Ms. Stewart.

—Scot Crawford