Belying the fascistic tendency of which I am sometimes accused, I am opposed to capital punishment, no matter how hideous the crime and how hateful the criminal.

Thus, I deplore the fact that, as this column was being written, Saddam Hussein was put to death by hanging. It was, simply, the wrong thing to do.

Despicable beast though he was, the "Butcher Of Baghdad" was entitled to a full measure of the justice that was denied him by his sentence to the gallows.

Although he fully qualified for a Black Belt in inhumanity, snuffing out his life was grossly unfair.

Unfair, that is to the hundreds of thousands of people he killed, the millions he tortured, terrorized and/or otherwise mistreated, and the thousands of Americans who would be alive and sound of limb today, were it not for his dirty deeds.

Justice, by definition, means fairness, equity and due reward for one's behavior, and the hangman's noose is more like an act of mercy than any of those consequences.

Within mere moments, Hussein was separated from the ugliness he spawned during decades of a wanton slaughter and mistreatment of his people.

Many believe that, because of his evil doings, he went straight to eternal and indescribable hellfire; this, arguably, would be a happy ending to a dreadful horror story. We will not, however, receive confirmation of so appropriate an outcome in any of our lifetimes - if ever.

What we will have to live with is the knowledge that he was spared the full measure of justice that might have been his lot for the probable remainder of his time on earth.

That could, for example, have been a 24/7/365 lock-up in solitary confinement with no direct human contact ever, and only enough nourishment to keep him alive. It could have included, as diversion, only reading material and audio-visual presentations devoted exclusively to documentation of his misdeeds, with no stomach-turning details edited out.

This total isolation from both present and future would have forced him to focus on the past suffering for which he was responsible, against which he had probably insulated himself with O. J. Simpsonesque resoluteness.

He would also be tormented by his memories of great wealth, opulent living conditions, unrestricted hedonism and unlimited power, which would be infinitely more painful than was his brief (albeit excruciating) dance at a rope's end.

Collateral torment would be the visions of those 72 virgins reserved - in his mind, at least - for his romantic dalliance in post-martyrdom.

To those who would say that such "cruel and inhuman punishment" might drive him insane, I submit that - given the evidence of his past - it would be more like a short putt.

An unpleasant by-product of the hanging will be predictable "protest demonstrations," which will cost more innocent lives and injuries and deepen the ethnic hatreds which were not diminished in any great measure by the monster's demise.

Cutting off the head of one serpent does little to restore order in a snake pit, so the notion that it will bring "closure" is pure nonsense.

Capital punishment tends to be a deterrent to further crime principally with respect to the person executed and heaps fuel on the fiery zeal of those who regard the termination of any life as unacceptable.

In that context, I stand apart from those who regard unlimited appeasement to be better than violence. It is a sad-but-undeniable truth that, although killing is the most abhorrent (and irreversible) of all crimes, it will always be a weapon of last resort in international affairs (that is, unless and until only smoldering ashes and cockroaches remain).

Aside: There was more wisdom than whimsy in the line from the musical "Camelot," positing that, "It's not the earth the meek inherit, it's the dirt." (My alleged fascism bubbling up again?)

Stripping the worst criminals of their freedom, dignity, comfort, pride, arrogance and access to all social contact would be a far more appropriate administration of true justice than offering them a convenient, however briefly uncomfortable, side exit from a life of misery.

They should be rewarded with the dubious gift of a miserable life, thereby given time to contemplate their contemptibility during seemingly endless days and thoroughly lonely nights, cut off from all but the barest essentials of survival.

Saddam Hussein was richly deserving of just such a life sentence, and the fact that he was deprived of it was a gross miscarriage of justice.