Scholars yet unborn doubtless will write still more biographies of figures like Cromwell and Thomas More; their kind will fascinate as long as history does. Charles I will remain in his exceptional place in English history, that continuing thesis against revolution, and Mussolini may rate another monograph or two.

(Let us pray that the absence of political executions from American annals, marked as they regularly are by the peaceful exchange of power, will continue to distinguish this republic, as opposed to a People's Republic.)

No historian may ever be able to unwrap the mystery of how a Hitler could have driven a whole nation mad - at the time probably the most advanced industrial nation in the world. But curious scholars will keep trying to explain it.

As for the late Saddam Hussein, it's hard to imagine how a biography of him would differ much from that of any other Middle Eastern despot. His kind is as common in those fatal latitudes as thieves in Baghdad, or sand fleas in the surrounding desert.

His was the story of one more thug who once could do away with friends and associates - even family - once he tired of them. He might have them executed in the most gruesome ways as an example to others. No one but his own still fanatical followers will waste tears on Saddam Hussein, or vow revenge for his more than deserved death.

However welcome justice may be, let there be no celebrating such an end.

How can we celebrate the death of any man, we who are mortal ourselves? Rather let us mourn others - the innocent victims of this never-ending war blown apart in some marketplace we will never hear of, or the young Pfc. from some wide place in the road who responded when his country called and gave it whatever he had. Like so many who have sacrificed so that the rest of us might breathe free - and see the light of the next dawn unafraid. And take it as our due, never noticing the price.

Lest we forget, there's still a war on, its outcome by no means sure. Our fighting men and women are well aware of that, whether they are in Iraq or Afghanistan or waiting to go there. This country has more pressing business right now than cheering the end of a tyrant who no longer matters, and who hasn't mattered for some time. For in war, as an American general named MacArthur said, there is no substitute for victory - and that includes jubilation.