Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

As the umpteenth Liberal "Defence" Minister Brendan Nelson said to the American press regarding the occupation of Iraq and the rise of public opposition to it - "Whatever the United States decides, Australia will agree with it".  Amen.

While the Howard Liberals continue to move around their "part-time" Ministry like the old "Shell game" - they meet regularly with the venal media Corporations to make sure those diversions are given maximum coverage, no matter how insignificant.

As far as I am concerned there are the stand-out matters of Industrial Relations ("White Coolies"); the faltering false economy; the record foreign and private debt and the rapidly increasing interest rates.

With respect to the latter, I guess that most Australians are taken in by the "New Order" deception that the comparison of interest rates between now and decades ago, is a reasonable con.

Actually, when all conditions are brought together, the Howard interest rates require much more of the Household disposable income than the Keating years which began the cycle of prosperity.

I have also pointed out that IF the Liberals want to use such a false comparison, how about Howard's four years as Liberal Treasurer with EVERY budget in deficit?  How about Howard's record of 21% interest rates?  What about Howard's 11% inflation rate? Why does the "paid for comment" media ignore the facts?

I have been trying to put a finger on why, under the present dire circumstances at home and abroad, with the most confused and incompetent Ministry in my life time, do the people still think that Howard or any of his sycophants, are good for the citizens of this Nation!

The major issues seem to me to be that Kim Beasley comes across as a gentle and caring man and, while the Labor party only criticises Howard (a small target) the "New Order" Liberals keep bashing away at the LABOR PARTY.  Of course Kim gets his share of Howard's dirty politics, especially from the "Chicken livered" Peter Costello.

Gough Whitlam's "It's time" motto was never truer than right now.

There is no truth - only the powers that be. ITS TIME that was changed.

My comment is a question- one unrelated to the immediate subject matter.

My memory says you wrote of trying to obtain clarification of the ONA secret document in whose release Wilkie (the writer), Bolt (reporter), Downer (failed minister trying to smear Wilkie) were all involved. The involvement was being investigated by the Police and this was the only reply you recorded.

Is there an update?

Roger Fedyk, having more or less recovered from my infernal labyrinthitis, I am now in a position to respond to your post Basus Celli on September 18, 2006. - 10:45pm, which was in turn a response to my Einstein can take a walk of September 17, 2006 - 6:06pm.

I have good reason to believe that more than one reader has read certain of my posts in the past. So I write here with that other reader also in mind. To make it easy for both you and the reader to follow, I am putting your points, and only those, in standard quotation marks.

To begin:  “Sadaam Hussein had neither the intelligence, guile, compliant citizenry nor resources at his disposal to make any assault on the world.”

I never said he had global ambitions, just Middle Eastern ones. As you would be aware, a big shot in the Middle East automatically gets to be taken notice of in the rest of the world. But as Christopher Hitchens said of him in another context: It's wearisome at this late date to read again the bland assertion that Saddam Hussein did not do things because it would have been unwise or irrational for him to do so. On that very basis, our intelligence establishment concluded that he would not invade Kuwait, would not set fire to the oil fields, and would not perform any number of other insane actions. His megalomania and volatility were consistently underestimated, with real consequences in the real world. No policy based on the assumption of his rational conduct ever worked. The Tony Jones Lateline interview of September 11, 2006 is also pertinent.

 
“You present an orthodox neo-con ideological position on Sadaam's removal and seeing that this position has been and still is a moving target with reason after changing reason as its justification, I really don't care to pursue it.”  

I dispute the neocon orthodoxy. However, let that pass for the moment. There were only ever 3 reasons for invading Iraq, all of them articulated by proponents of the war one way or another: WMD, regime change and oil. As Saddam’s removal was the central issue of my post above, and the ‘neocon position’ has been considerably weakened by the failure to find WMD and the unexpected power of the ‘insurgency’, your decision to call off the chase on this comes as a bit of a surprise. But never mind; we’ll get to it one way or another.

 
“What in your opinion is the difference between the Baathists and the Burmese junta? Is that consistent with the difference between them and ZANU-PF? Is it also consistent with the difference between them and Kim Jong-il? Do you support the invasion of Myanmar, Zimbabwe and North Korea?”  

When George Bush 2 picked a fight with Saddam Hussein, everyone had 3 choices: one side; the other side; or the fence. Democrats within Iraq could do little about Saddam, and democrats outside not much more. But the President of the US could do a great deal.

In all my life I have never been in a position to attack an obnoxious political regime with anything other than words. However, I have often been in a position where I had to choose which side to be on. Over Suez in 1956 I found myself siding with Egypt’s President Nasser and in opposition to Britain; in the Falklands War of 1982, I supported Britain against Argentina. During the Vietnam War I supported the “Vietcong” and North Vietnamese against the US. In Iraq, I supported the US against Saddam Hussein. Thus if the hideous Burmese junta got into a war with Bush, I would have to see some pretty powerful arguments before that junta got my support.

To your question: “What in your opinion is the difference between the Baathists and the Burmese junta?” I can say that apart from the obvious differences of geographic location, language, religion and culture, nothing much at all. Except of course, mass support. The Baathists appear to have popular support across all levels of Sunni society in Iraq, (though that appears to be decreasingly certain) while popular support for the Burmese junta is pretty well zero.

In the unlikely event of Bush picking a fight with Mugabe, I would probably support Bush. Circumstances would have to be bizarre to stop me. The Korean peninsula, on the other hand, is probably the trickiest place in the world politically. The last time the US got into a war with North Korea, it finished up also in a limited war with China. And that was with North Korea starting the war. The fence would look very comfortable indeed.

‘What you have going for you is that nothing is permanent. As I have pointed out, time will sweep these things away and if you are still here in 100 years you might be able to say ‘Weren't we right?’ and you might make your case because people will have very little idea what you are referring to. Such is the legacy of Einstein/Hawking.” 

It has little to do with Einstein and Hawking and a lot to do with the timescale of historical judgement. In my 2003 piece I mentioned how important the 1936 reoccupation of the demilitarised zones of the Rhineland was in the rise of Hitler – that is, according to Hitler himself. There were excellent arguments presented at the time by (mainly leftist) people in Britain against British intervention there in response to a French request for help. War was avoided – then. But Hitler went from strength to strength, and assembled a war machine capable of taking all the ground between Egypt and the North Sea, and between Stalingrad and the English Channel.

Unlike Hitler, Saddam did not have the industrial might of Germany behind him. He just had the political support of Germany, France, China and Russia, because of the oil he controlled, and more whose flow he could influence. That, and WMD, was the danger of Saddam. Robert Mugabe, obnoxious as he is, is small beer by comparison.

Between Dunkirk and Pearl Harbour, assessments in Britain of the wisdom and prospects of fighting Hitler altered considerably. Issues of principle (Hitler was anti-communist) motivated numerous British conservatives to support him. There was also expediency. Hitler was well placed to win any war with Britain. That changed rapidly after Pearl Harbour (1941), and even more so after Stalingrad (1942-43). Future historians may revise the present assessment of Hitler, and conclude that he was on balance, a positive force for good in Germany, Europe and the world. But for that to happen, the old yardsticks will have to be disposed of, and completely different ones brought in. That future world would have to be vastly different from the one we know.

In 2002, the agitation directed against the US in favour of leaving Saddam alone and unsanctioned was to my mind very reminiscent of the leftist pacifism Orwell condemned in the 1930s when Hitler’s shadow was growing over Europe.  The left wing demonstrations against the Iraq War petered out after only 1 year, indicating to my mind that many of the early anti-war demonstrators have had second thoughts about giving de facto support to Baathism, jihadism and Islamic fascism. The contrast with the growth of the antiwar movement over Vietnam is profound. 

“Another lapse of logic is your insistence on the invasion being ‘the only conceivable means’. I and many others, including the majority of the UN saw a number of other ‘conceivable means’.  You may not agree with those means but they were there.

“For example, here is plausible scenario. The US makes a magnanimous gesture which makes a rapprochement with Iran possible. After a decade of assiduously developing Iranian trust, the whole Arab world comes around to a new thinking based on mutual trust and substantial trade (the Chinese model). Iraq is isolated and the new allies of the US place their armies on the Iraqi borders. Not to invade, but to provide a safe passage for those Iraqis who want to leave for a better life. In the meantime, no one buys Iraqi oil. With the death of Saddam from old age or boredom, Iraq is re-integrated into the Middle Eastern community. The expatriates return to revitalize their country.  The loss of life would be minimal. The oil reserves would still remain and would come into their own in 20-30 years time.”

I put it to you that the majority of the UN see much the same ‘conceivable means’ coming in handy on the present issue of Darfur, boiling down to medium density talk, slow and pedantic generation of diplomatic notes, and zero action.

But suppose we itemise the chain of events in this plausible scenario and assign a probability (expressed as a percentage on a scale 0-100) to each. My guesstimates are shown in (parentheses). You and the One Other Person may dispute them, of course.

1. The US makes a magnanimous gesture which makes a rapprochement with Iran possible. (50%)

2. After a decade of assiduously developing Iranian trust, the whole Arab world comes around to a new thinking based on mutual trust and substantial trade (the Chinese model). (Given #1, 75%)

3. Iraq is isolated and the new allies of the US place their armies on the Iraqi borders. Not to invade, but to provide a safe passage for those Iraqis who want to leave for a better life. (Given #1+ #2; 25%)

4. In the meantime, no one buys Iraqi oil. (Given #1, +#2, +#3; 2%)

5. With the death of Saddam from old age or boredom, Iraq is re-integrated into the Middle Eastern community. (Given #1, +#2, +#3 +#4; 50% - don’t forget sons Uday and Qusay.)

6. The expatriates return to revitalize their country. (Given #1, +#2, +#3 +#4 +#5; 50%)  - That is, only half of them do so.

7. The loss of life would be minimal. (Even given #1, +#2, +#3 +#4 +#5 +#6; 10%) What is ‘minimal’? You assume that the Baathists would be content to relinquish their power to another (non-Baathist) government. They have a lot to lose by doing that, as their behaviour over the last 3 years shows. The fact that they see their interest in maximizing loss of life militates against this.

8. The oil reserves would still remain and would come into their own in 20-30 years time. (Given #1, +#2, +#3 +#4 +#5 +#6 +#7; 100%) But that presumably gives Saddam and his psychopath sons 20-30 years to hold onto power in Iraq, in their own blood curdling way.

Your sequence of events rests on a few assumptions, chief of which in my opinion is that Saddam all the while cannot do anything to frustrate or otherwise affect the smooth flow towards your desired outcome at 8, after all the legs of this polyfecta are in. Nor are other more random factors allowed a role.

Although I give only one of your steps a 100% chance, probability does not play the same role here that it does in say, a poker machine, where each reel spins and stops independently of the others. Rather, your scheme is like a poker machine which has reels which take account, in their stopping, of the card, displayed by the previous reel when it stopped. The cards are not falling independently. Moreover, while the reels in a conventional machine hold their positions and values once stopped, any given reel in this poker machine of politics can start moving again at any time and upset all the rest. As you would know, the probability of the whole project remaining on track from 1 through to 8 is the product of the 8 separate probabilities. The product of my guesstimates (50% x 75% x 25% x 2% x 50% x 50% x 10% x 100%) yields an overall probability of success, as envisaged, of 0.005%. There’s many a slip ‘twixt cup and lip. Of course, others  more optimistically may choose to assign a 100% chance of success at every stage, and get around it that way. Who could prove them wrong?

(For the best argument I have yet seen against such alternative deposition scenarios, see Norman Geras’ ‘Argument over Iraq #5’. This has links to his Arguments #1-#4, all in support of the war. In my view the question I asked that prompted all this discussion, namely ‘Was the fall of Saddam a good thing?’ is a hell of a lot deeper than it first appears. In saying that I make no claims of superior moral rectitude or of clairvoyance. Just that it is a very interesting question. Geras is one man who has plumbed its depth a whole lot further than I have. But I could mention others.)

But back to the chain of less-than-certainties problem: George Bush ran into it pretty soon after invading Iraq.  As I see it, his original game plan was something like this:

a. Force the UN to take a position on Saddam’s overthrow by outside intervention.

b. With or without UN support, go in, defeat the regime and capture or kill Saddam.

c. Start a thorough search for Saddam’s WMD; find enough WMD to justify the war in those terms.

d. Maintain order under CoW military occupation.

e. With sanctions lifted, use favoured US companies to start oil flowing to the world markets again.

f. Get suitable Iraqis to draft a constitution, get it endorsed by popular mandate, then hold elections to set up a representative government.

g. Use Iraq as a model to improve US relations with the Arab street and reduce hostility to Israel.

This started to come unstuck at around points c and d, (after Bush announced “mission accomplished”) with the Sunni Baathist ‘resistance’ gaining a terrorist initiative, ably assisted by wild cards like Pfc Lindie England and her colleagues at Abu Ghraib. By point f, Bush faced the danger of the whole exercise backfiring, with a Shiite dominated national government leading Iraq into alliance with Iran and/or partition of the country into separate Kurdish, Shia and Sunni nations, and with Iran being the clear winner of the Iraq war. He still faces it. He will get an outcome, but not the one he hoped and worked for.

(For a brief period a few years back I was a member of the Australian Democrats. A fellow member, the physicist Henry Rathgeber, fondly likened the process of policy formation for controlling the direction of both the ship of state and society at large, to pushing a spinning gyroscope. Both are prone to difference between expectation and outcome. You push a gyroscope north, and it moves west or east, depending on its direction of spin. Trying to operate in favour of a sectional interest, be it in Iraq Sunni, Shia or Halliburton, often produces this sort of effect. This is just one of the reasons why I favour principle over ‘pragmatism’ and ‘realpolitik’.)

“Regarding your reference to the Janjaweed militias, are you advocating an invasion of Sudan?”

The UN at present is blocked over Sudan just as it was over Iraq. The Chinese for all too obvious reasons, oppose UN peace-keepers being sent. The mass murder goes on. I would like robust UN intervention. So yes.

“Now to an even more important lapse of logic. I really like your statement that ‘Saddam controlled (in Iraq) about 8% of the world’s oil, and had he held Kuwait and taken over the oilfields of Iran, that would have brought his total to about 20% (again from memory). Had he been left alone, his clawback of political influence in the Middle East was potentially enormous’. So, is it possible that you have entirely missed the truth you have stumbled upon? Like I have said many times ‘IATO - It's About The Oil, first, second, third... and all the way to last’.  No noble motives for the US and the CoW. Just plain greed and ‘let's whack the bastard because we want what he has got’.”

Roger, I said it was about oil in the very first post I did for Webdiary on this issue, back in February 2003, linked to above. Saddam in Iran and Kuwait had tried to corner as much of the ME oil as he could. Or do you believe that if he had beaten Iran, oil would not have figured in his peace settlement? Or if left alone in Kuwait, would he have placed its oil under UN control?

In the view of the leading neocons, as expressed in their famous (Jan 26, 1998) letter to President Clinton:

‘The policy of “containment” of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months.  As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections.  Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished.  Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons production.  The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam’s secrets.  As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons.

 

‘Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East.  It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil will all be put at hazard.  As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat.’

This letter expressed even then, uncertainty over Saddam’s WMD, and was either a sincere statement of concern or a cynical attempt to stampede Clinton into a brawl with a tyrant who posed no real threat, in the private view of the document's authors, to US interests. I am disinclined to adopt the latter position.

“As to your historical treatise, I find it replete with short-comings. The 1930's were a dismal time because of the Great Depression. The fascist regimes grew out of desperate circumstances.”

Mussolini  took over in Italy in 1922,  at the start of the ‘roaring twenties’,  and 7 years before the Wall Street crash.  Mussolini’s example inspired Hitler. Hitler and Mussolini assisted Franco to power. That’s what I was talking about. Nothing succeeds like success, and nothing fails like failure. 

“There was very little interaction between Stalin's Russia and any other country in the world at that time.”

Did I say there was? And did that matter anyway to the issue under discussion? 

“The great effort to export communism did not take place until after WWII when Russia found that it had a means to generate wealth which it did not have in the 20's and 30's.  During those earlier times, Stalin kept Russia relatively isolated while he butchered 20 million of his countrymen in relative seclusion. My grandfather and uncle were among the Csarist officer core that ‘disappeared’.” 

With all due respect, this historical treatise of yours also has its shortcomings, as would any two-paragraph cover of the period.

“The attraction to Fascist leaders did not affect most European nations and more to the point the emergence of a Hitler, Franco, Mussolini requires such a convergence of special circumstances that it is not the norm.  The principle of succession of power, prior to the emergence of democracies, had been settled for centuries with only a singular Napoleon able to usurp it. The same principle of inherited power is the norm even in democracies today, as Bush proves. We had little to fear from Saddam clones popping up everywhere.”

That’s only somewhat reassuring. I suppose it depends on the way you look at it. I would make two points here: First, I see fascism, Stalinism and indeed all hierarchical authoritarian and totalitarian regimes as reversions in their way to feudalism, albeit in modern dress, or at least to something close to the late Mediaeval variety of it. (Feudalism in one form or another seems to be a phase all societies have to go through in their development.) Of course, in Germany, Italy and even Russia it was a feudalism applied to an industrial and urbanising society.

One reason Spain went fascist after 1936 was the weakness of its liberal bourgeoisie. The history of Latin America is one of military dictatorships punctuated by brief periods of alternative power, again expressing the strength of feudalism in the mother countries on the Iberian Peninsula until relatively recent times. Absolutism, as its name suggests, rests on a highly ordered hierarchy in society, and reached its highest point in the USSR under Stalin: better understood as a workers’ feudalism rather than a workers’ state. Stalin (Saddam’s hero) installed minor clones of himself wherever he could, from Pyongyang to East Berlin.

“As to your elevation of Saddam Hussein as ‘one of the greatest mass murderers in human history’. I think you are historically mistaken. Here are just a few of the major players. In the history of the world there have been hundreds of others, some with impeccably respectable credentials such as King Leopold II

Gengis Khan : 60 million (unattributed)
Stalin: 20 million
Hitler : 6-10 million+
Kaiser Wilhem: 5 million+
Sultan Moulay Ismail: 2 million
Pol Pot: 2 million
Attila the Hun: 1-2 million
The Crusades leaders: 1.5 - 9 million
Enver, Talaat, Jemal : 1 million+ Armenians

Sadaam Hussein: 100,000+ unless we add the death toll from the US-supported war against Iran of 1.7 million.”

Yes, I would include the Iranian dead in the score against Saddam. And no, I did not at any stage say that he was the greatest mass murderer in history. Merely one of the greatest, and as far as I can see, the greatest still alive. Sorry, but you have not proved me wrong on that. I assume you can name the “hundreds of others” worse than Saddam, or at least point me to your source. Meanwhile, I would suggest Tyrants: History’s 100 most evil despots and dictators, by Nigel Cawthorne. Saddam certainly gets a Guernsey in that book.

On ABC Radio National's PM program yesterday, Mark Colvin interviewed Professor Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, on prospects for 'the long war(s)'.

Are we learning, as a country and as an international community, about the problems of dealing with failed states, threatening regimes? Yes. Are we anywhere at the point where we as yet know all of the things necessary to succeed? No.

Transcript and audio (6 min) available here.

G'day Roger. The historicity of the Crucifixion, or any other bibilical event for that matter, is much less straightforward than, say, that the casus belli for the Iraq war was entirely fraudulent. Of course, if someone like Bush, Blair or Howard says something is so, naturally one is instantly sceptical.

Anyway, I have no real objection to discussing the Crucifixion as if it actually happened, because for many people it did happen. For me the problem is not so much that the Bush/Blair/Howard axis of egos profess to be devout believers in Christ and His teachings, but rather that their behaviour is vastly at odds with those teachings. Everything from bald-faced lies to slaughter of innocents seems permissible to these degenerates. Sure, Christ did say "render unto Caesar" ... but sheesh!

Still, there may be mitigating factors. For Mr Bush, it's probably alcohol-induced brain damage. For Mr Blair, mania and self-delusion. For Mr Howard, some form of severe sociopathic disorder seems likely.

But somehow these explanations don't seem adequate to account for the breadth of the dysfunction. Whether there's a Hell, and whether these mitigations will keep the three of them out of that place - again, these issues are not so straightforward as that 100,000+ people were killed under a fraudulent pretext.

Personally I find Darwin more helpful than theology for understanding things like the Bush/Blair/Howard type of malaise. Only a view of nature red-in-tooth-and-claw can begin to account for the continued stupidity, cruelty and wastefulness that really hasn't abated since the primordial soup, and which now has only been refined to high art.

Well, sorry for the bleakness, that's just how I feel at the moment. Perhaps things will seem a bit better after a good, strong cuppa.

Reported here:

A divided Security Council voted on Friday to add Burma to its agenda, deeming it a threat to regional and international peace and security.

Ten nations, including the US, voted in favour of the addition, while China, Russia, Qatar and the Democratic Republic of Congo voted against it. Tanzania abstained.

So, will the Free West invade? Hopefully not - even though the fall of the Burmese junta would in and of itself be a good thing - but Burma's democratic opposition is hopeful that putting the regime 'on notice' in this way "will certainly help pave the way for national reconciliation in our country."

It's pointless really, but one does wonder, had Australia a seat on the Security Council, which way our Government would have voted. My guess is that it would have joined Tanzania in abstaining. To date, Foreign Minister Downer has maintained unshakeable faith in the Government's strategy of sending over fierce bands of human rights advisers.

Phil, the Crucifixion occurred on a good Friday (so I'd hate to see one of His bad ones).

It is the pivotal Good News event in the Good News New Testament.

It was the penultimate event of JC's mission on Earth, which by most lights and as a whole was unequivocally a good thing.

JC's example was why Archbishop Romero of El Salvador said that "killing priests is good news".

Overall, the consensus seems to be that the Crucifixion was a good thing. I'm happy, however, to consider opposing views.

Ian, yes I well recall your 'annotated Burchill' piece. As I mentioned and you are no doubt aware, numerous WD threads have been periodically saturated with discussion of 'specifics' on the Iraq debacle, through which anyone may troll trawl for offerings of widely varying caliber. For better or worse, like many I've often put my own two-cents-worth over the last three years or so.

Regarding the slaughterfest rules of engagement, much has been said by many on the Lancet (Roberts et al), Iraq Body Count and UNDP studies into Iraqi civilian casualties. For example, I made an unremarkable comment on a WD thread at July 22, 2005 10:36 AM that became the basis for an unremarkable letter in a Melbourne paper, in which I drew attention to

...the release on July 19 [2005] of the Iraq Body Count Project's report on civilian casualties in Iraq. The report documents a tally of at least 25,000 civilian fatalities and over 42,000 wounded in two years since the invasion.

A disturbing detail contained in the report is that "children were disproportionately affected by all explosive devices, but most severely by air strikes and unexploded ordnance". Almost 10 per cent of fatalities were children under 18. Further down we read that 73.5 per cent of people killed by unexploded ordnance were children.

"Unexploded ordnance" includes cluster bombs, which a number of NGOs pleaded with the invading forces before the invasion not to use where there were civilians.

On this matter, a pertinent charge brought by the World Tribunal on Iraq against the Coalition of the Willing governments was that of "using disproportionate force and indiscriminate weapon systems".

An open and shut case, really. Guilty as charged!

My point there was to highlight just one aspect of the costs of the debacle that tend to be glossed over with cant along the lines of "Saddam has been 'taken out'" and "the fall of Saddam in and of itself was a good thing". Further to the latter piece of cant, about a year ago I explored the possibility that the fall of Saddam may not have been such a 'good thing':

What a pretty pass we've come to. See this piece ["Wanted: A strongman to hold Iraq together", 22 August 2005] in The Australian by Neil Clark, tutor in history and politics at Oxford Tutorial College in England, who writes:

... [Saddam's] removal from power was a colossal error. Rather than working for regime change, the US, Britain and Australia should instead have been collaborating with the Iraqi leader and acknowledging the key role secular Baathist regimes such as his had to play in the Middle East as bulwarks against a resurgent Islamic fundamentalism. After all, this was the West's policy up until the first Gulf War in 1991. Why couldn't it have been so again?

... To many, the idea that Iraq, under Saddam, was the least-worst scenario for both the West and the Iraqi people may seem depressing and defeatist. But 2 1/2 years since his statue was toppled in central Baghdad, the evidence to the contrary is hardly convincing.

A quick look at the calendar confirms this is not an April 1st hoax. Gads, a serious consideration of an alternative non-military solution involving hitherto unspeakable collaboration with the genocidal arch-villain, Saddam Hussein. Could the old bastard have been rehabilitated from 'embodiment of evil' to 'trusted ally' (where he began)?

It's hard to credit, but then proponents of the war didn't want to see happen what now [as at August 2005] appears likely: an Iraqi constitution enshrining Sharia law and "the abolition of the Personal Status Law, which for five decades has protected the rights of Iraqi women in matters of marriage, divorce and custody". Least of all was it envisaged that an Islamic republic should be in control of the world's second largest oil reserves.

So let's just for a moment consider the scenario proposed by Clark. Saddam Hussein, instead of being vilified and militarily toppled from power - with tens of thousands of his subjects brutally 'taken out' in his stead - is coaxed and cajoled back into the Western sphere of influence. The Baathist regime, instead of being isolated and its very existence threatened from within and without, is no longer to be driven into the position of being a cornered shithouse rat with all the associated behavioural traits. Consequently, the regime perceives less of a need for a pervasive and crushing security apparatus, let alone that chimeric human shredding machine.

Saddam's Iraq becomes amenable to Western pressure towards improving its human rights performance (assuming this was thought to be desirable by Washington and London, pre-1991 practices notwithstanding). Humanitarian improvements are tied to measures such as reconstruction aid and trade privileges within and beyond the region. These and other measures are UNSC mandated and have the support of General Assembly resolutions.

A general flowering of Iraqi civil society ensues, with moderate Baathist officials increasing in influence and power. Saddam and his cronies are persuaded to be pensioned off (generously, I fear, but it'd have to be a comprehensive bribe), clearing the way for a civil society-led remaking of the Iraqi political landscape.

A decade or so down the track, the Iraqi authorities pursue the extradition of Saddam from Jordan, where he is now living in a typically palatial residence under the protection of King Abdulla (son of Saddam's buddy, the late King Hussein), for crimes against humanity during his rule. After several years of proceedings and counter-proceedings, Saddam dies, a broken though still very wealthy man, in his bed of prostate cancer.

And, wow, tens of thousands of more people alive than dead. And, gee, no dispersion of DU particulates in urban areas. And, strewth, the Iraqi economy still under Iraqi control (yes, I know, hold that thought).

Coincidental footnote: George W Bush, having failed to find another Satan, became a one-term president following his 2004 election loss. (His mate, John, still got across the line on bulldust and interest rates.)

You may s-a-a-y I'm a dreamer... But is this scenario any less likely than a quick and easy victory, with flowers strewn before the invading armoured personnel carriers, and the establishment of LA in Mesopotamia?

On reflection, I have to say that this alternative scenario probably could never have happened. The reality is that a free Iraq was always way down on the list of priorities.

On posting that comment, I was expecting to be vigorously accused of appeasement and/or defeatism, but in the event was surprised when it elicited no response at all. Ah well, posting in these forums is to a great extent just so much pissing in the wind, anyway.

Somewhere between the click on the 'post comment' button and publication, my last post was given a gremlin's idea of a cut and paste job. So here goes a second try:

Jacob A. Stam:

This would be highly relevant were I a Reaganite of record or a supporter of the US Republican Party of today. I have been writing on this and other issues in Webdiary since 2002, and believe I have a long record in its threads of condemnation of both Republican and Democrats’ policies on Iran. I think you are ransacking your own broom cupboard here, looking rather frantically for things to clobber me with, while muttering epithets through clenched teeth. You are also doing Saddam a grave injustice by trying to saddle him up with the lamest excuse of all: "I was put up to it, Your Honour."

As for your ("alluded to") specifics’: You say "I alluded to just a couple of 'specifics' below - e.g., fraudulent causus belli, rules of engagement in relation to the Iraq slaughterfest - and there's much, much more, Ian, of which you must have some inkling, but seem to happily ignore."

That’s your idea of being "specific" is it?

The specific issue of WMD claims I went into on my very first post on this issue, in February 2003, before the war even started, and said that Powell’s presentation at the UN was the weakest part of his case. Read about it at ?q=node/1315 

As for the rest of it, noted.

if you like. And be assured that I am not trying to stop you criticising my posts for what you think they should have said, but didn’t. Your idea of relevance re that particular post by Roger Fedyk opens the lock to an ocean of red herrings, highly relevant to a host of others perhaps, but not to the one in question. That is, the post which began as a discussion of the question "Was the fall of Saddam a good thing?" (Yes or no, Jacob. In and of itself. Yes or no?)"Your focus on Saddam's expansionism ignores the 'specific' that this expansionism (viz., invasion of Iran) was actively encouraged by the US administration of the time for its own pragmatic purposes. This at a time when Saddam was known to be gassing the Iranian forces and his own Kurdish civilians. Not only was Saddam encouraged and facilitated by the Reagan Whitehouse, but the latter actively thwarted Congressional attempts to rein in the excesses of that foul regime."

Richard:  Ian, all I did was correct the font.
 

Was the crucifixion of Jesus a good thing?

Ian, your argument here has lazily avoided 'specifics', preferring instead fuzzy generalities. Ooh ah, Saddam has been deposed. Such grandyaw, 'we' dunnit, and aren't 'we' just at the very pinnacle of history as hi-tech fighters for freedom, etc.

Your focus on Saddam's expansionism ignores the 'specific' that this expansionism (viz., invasion of Iran) was actively encouraged by the US administration of the time for its own pragmatic purposes. This at a time when Saddam was known to be gassing the Iranian forces and his own Kurdish civilians. Not only was Saddam encouraged and facilitated by the Reagan Whitehouse, but the latter actively thwarted Congressional attempts to rein in the excesses of that foul regime.

Now, after all these years, we are to wax lyrical that Saddam has got-wot-wuz-coming-folks, for decades-old crimes so long ignored by the 'Free West'. Well, better late than never, eh?

But wait, as for the final glorious toppling of the tyrant, you don't really want to go too deeply into the 'specifics' of that, do you, Ian? I alluded to just a couple of 'specifics' below - e.g., fraudulent causus belli, rules of engagement in relation to the Iraq slaughterfest - and there's much, much more, Ian, of which you must have some inkling, but seem to happily ignore.

I and others have long been arguing 'specifics' here and elsewhere, with a view to perhaps avoiding repeat of the failures that have led to this quagmire. Yet you persist in insulting everyone's intelligence with the kind of glazed narrative you've been spinning here, so typical of the phantasmagoric landscape you and your fellow travellers inhabit.

Thanks but no, Ian, I'm done discussing 'specifics' with borderline delusionals.

Ian MacDougall: "Who then can say that we do not live right now in the best of all possible worlds?"

Congratulations, Ian, a most amusing satire. And such an utterly convincing delivery, almost as if you believe it yourself.

If you choose to see the fall of Saddam and the invasion as special and general cases in this way, then I suppose everything else falls into place. But I dispute your special/general dichotomy. For me, sweeping away the whole rotten Baathist regime, together with Saddam as its lynchpin and dictator, was a very important and worthy end. Indeed you acknowledge that.

But one point I do not concede. The war was not ‘the general case’, but rather the only conceivable means. This is a fact always avoided one way or another by those who oppose/d the war. All welcome the fall while opposing the CoW invasion. Not even that great Saddam greeter and saluter George Galloway has been prepared to say that Saddam should still be in power. The bizarre fact is that all antiwar commentators have welcomed the fall while opposing the only process whereby it could have been brought about. (There may be some people writing in Arabic and other languages whose work is beyond my reach.) The only exceptions I have encountered have all been Webdiarists: Sid Walker (now banned) and a couple of others whose names at present escape me.

"There are not all that many parallels between the ruinous takeover of a substantial European country by the Nazi criminals and the cruel fiefdom that Saddam made. Nazi Germany was bent on taking over the world. Saddam had no such grand ambitions. We could have left him in Iraq with no detriment to us. If it was a moral imperative to get rid of him then that imperative must extend to all the murderous regimes of the world or be seen as a failed and self-serving chimera."

Let us leave aside for now the potential debate over Hitler’s actual aims (in a global context) as distinct from his rhetoric and his need to maintain the alliances with Italy and Japan, though that can be visited if you wish. Arguably, leaving Darfur to the tender mercies of the Janjaweed militias and their patrons in the Sudanese government might have little effect on us materially in the short term. The longer term effects via generation of pessimism and despair in Africa generally might have been greater, even if our individual consciences were such as to enable us to tolerate such holocausts at various locations on the planet from time to time. Yes, we could have left Saddam in Iraq, but how lack of detriment to us could have been guaranteed I find impossible to see.

To say in the light of Hitler’s megalomania that "Saddam had no such ambitions" looks very reassuring, and does not actually deny that he had ambitions. The world got more than a glimpse of those when he invaded Iran and Kuwait.

It has often been said in print that Saddam conceived of himself as Saladin the second, and he certainly behaved that way. He was not like, say, Mugabe: a tin-pot dictator protected by thugs and presiding over a collapsed economy and a failed state. From memory even in 2002 Saddam controlled (in Iraq) about 8% of the world’s oil, and had he held Kuwait and taken over the oilfields of Iran, that would have brought his total to about 20% (again from memory). Had he been left alone, his clawback of political influence in the Middle East was potentially enormous.

That sort of wealth and power would not only have bought him great influence in Saudi Arabia, but all the WMD he could have wished for. Despots like Gaddafi are reeds in the wind, and are not in short supply round the region.

Saddam’s problem in 2002 was not one of convincing Bush that he had no WMD, but rather convincing the UN, particularly in view of the fact that in the years immediately prior, he had that WMD program. Proving a negative is a task that has stumped better philosophers than Saddam.

A case in point: I see the 1930s as having been such a dismal time because Stalinism and fascism were not only feeding off one another, but were creating an environment of self-fulfilling prophecy. Fascist governments inspired and otherwise worked to generate further fascist governments (eg German and Italian assistance in the victory of Franco over the Spanish republic.) The future seemed to all too many to belong to them, not to liberal democracy. Meanwhile the isolationists in the US were saying: "Leave them alone. They are no threat to us."

Nobody can say for sure what would have happened had Saddam been left alone. But I venture to say that Saddam lookalikes would likely have mushroomed through the Middle East, just as Mussolini lookalikes multiplied in the 1930s throughout central and eastern Europe. Gaddafi would definitely have stayed quiet to the world about his WMD, and Saddam could have worked towards creating a regional environment of mutually assured destruction (vis a vis Israel), as the Iranians are now doing, in their present untouchable way; while buying plenty of influence at court in France, Germany, China, Russia and elsewhere.

Saddam Hussein, one of the greatest mass murderers in human history, has now had an enormous amount of political and economic power removed from his grasp. Who then can say that we do not live right now in the best of all possible worlds?

 O me miserum! I can't find causus belli in Stam's dictionary. Sir.

Where's mine? Sir. Thwackum, the Head Prefect has it, Sir. Yes Sir. He confiscated it Sir. It was down the back of my trousers, Sir. I put it there Sir, when I was sent to him for a caning, Sir.

Excuse me, Sir. Do I have it correctly, Sir? I am to copy the whole dictionary out in longhand by tomorrow morning, Sir? That's a bit steep, Sir, isn't it Sir?

Yes, Sir. And Caesar's Commentaries as well, for impertinence. Sir.

G'day Ian. It's interesting that, while opponents of the Iraq war are made to wear moral conundrums (e.g., "was not the fall of Saddam a good thing?"), proponents of the war have by and large clothed themselves in moral certitude.

I'm not by any means fingering you, Ian, but in my opinion this is generally accomplished by wilfully ignoring the moral conundrums inherent in the pro war position. Primarily this seems to involve a slapdash approach to, if not outright fudging of, the cost/benefit analyses, assuming these have even been attempted.

I don't really want to revisit the fact that the casus belli identified by you as being decisive - at least, at the time - have been found to be entirely fraudulent. Many made the correct call at the time, but were shouted down, even vilified. Depending on who you listen to, the blame for this broad failure rests variously with 'intelligence failures', to outright mendacity on the part of the CotW leadership.

I'd propose, however, that an integral part of the cost/benefit analysis, in the 'post mortem' of this debacle, should include the significant harm that has been done, within the societies of 'the Free World', to public discourse and trust. Crucially, how much harder will it be to garner broad public support for any future intervention, even a meritorious one, after this disgraceful episode?

Oh and yes, it's certainly heartening that the Darfur problem is up for consideration with the UNSC. Hopefully the rules of engagement will receive the level of consideration appropriate for a humanitarian intervention, if by some freak of history that's the way things go. That would be an improvement on the Iraq slaughterfest.

Thanks also for the platform 16 reference:

It may be thought that self-righteousness only afflicts those who remain resolute in a single unchanging view. Never, though, underestimate the capacity for self-righteousness of the recently 'saved'.

Yes indeed, the perils of the flip-flop. What's even sadder is that the flailing reversals seem to be in pique at being associated with a perceived failed enterprise. I've nil respect for such children.

Yes, sir.

C-A-U-S-U-S  B-E-L-L-I

Thankyou, sir. Yes, sir, I'll write it out a hundred times, sir.

Um ... Actually, sir, my dictionary says, "Casus belli", sir.

**thwak**

(Ouch!) Sorry, sir, you're right, of course, sir. A hundred times, yes, sir.

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Jack, Jacob et al, apropos of Iraq and all the preceding discussion, Norman Geras has a quite pertinent piece in his blog today. Scroll down to 'Platform sixteen'.

Yes, points well taken, Ian MacDougall; re-reading your original I agree that I was too hasty and too sensitive in finding offence in your comments on volunteer soldiering. I might benefit from suspending lectures occasionally about chips on shoulders to do some epaulette brushing myself. Sorry, and thanks for being gracious.

Your point about Statecraft is quite true. It's always easier to debate with moral clarity without the weight of responsiblity for decision-making on your shoulders. That's a given. But it's very important that this truism is never used by those debating an issue without that cross to bear...as as argument in favour of their support for whatever the powerful decision-maker decides.

The pragmatic argument: 'It's all very well to be idealistic and morally pure but when you've got to make a decision in the real world you don't have that luxury..."  is not really argument, it's more an explanation.

And the only people in Australia who had, and now have, the legitimate right to incorporate that piece of truth in their overall moral calculus...are, essentially, the twenty-odd members of John Howard's cabinet of the day.

As for the WW2 one, I agree that Churchill made the right decision, even if he did spent a decade after the war writing an airbrushed history that takes extra-special care to highlight the bits that make it look that way to us, and ignores the bits that might not. Churchill is one of my favorite historical figures...but he was no Churchill. And Iraq was no Czech/Poland/WW2. Nor was Saddam a Hitler. Not even ballpark, IM.

Not even the same league. 

Thanks again for your courtesy and generosity. 

Roger Fedyk, yes, of course you're perfectly right (to stress the economic). However, conversly, that doesn't mean that I am necessarily incorrect (to stress the ideological). After all, pinhead, shitwit moron of this century and the last one, G.W. Bush believes in these documents of overwhelming folly and evil falsehood.

The flaw in both our posts is that  we are both looking for monocausal explanations, rather than what we should be doing which is properly attempting to understand complex human historical events through a necessarily multicausal lens.

The best person I can think of for this is Michael Mann. and his model in his  massive study The Sources of Social Power. He is a "left-Weberian", best known for stressing the Military institutions (a thing which Max Weber himself left out) of a polity as a "source of social power", as the title goes.

 So, for instance, when reading that peice of toilet-paper, the emetic PNAC, one can certainly see the Pentagon all over it as well as the plutocratic hustlers of Wall Street.

(C. Wright Mills and his "military/industrial complex" as found in The Power Elite would be an obvious comparison/probable influence).

Paul Celan: "Our talk of justice is empty until the last battleship has foundered on the forehead of a drowned man".

Thanks for your time, Ian. I mean no offence and am grateful for your considered response but your final reduction of my answer to your question to that 'too hard' reveals that both of us would likely be wasting our time to continue this conversation much further. Your misreading of the point of my references to my brother's fighting and your perhaps unintentionally-patronising comments on the nature of volunteer armies - I did ten years in uniform, Ian, how about you? - I will just let go. (I will, on the other hand, remind you that your simple 'either/or' option-and-calculus fails utterly to concede that my alternative plan, as unrealistic as you may regard it still, did set as its clear aim the removal of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of a democratic regime, anyway.)

Still, let's simply agree to hope your invasion, liberation, occupation and democratisation project does not result in the killing and maiming of too many more people than would otherwise have been the case. As for the hypothetical future deaths that might have occured under Saddam..if it comforts your conscience to imagine them accruing at an always greater rate that in Saddam-free reality today, come what may...by all means do so. It makes no difference to the real dead.

If I were remotely interested in posing hypothetical questions and answering them in a way that made me feel better I would, I guess, be equally free to presume the reverse, with no more or less concrete grounds for doing so than you (up to a certain limit, at least). But I'm sorry - I'm just not interested in pondering imaginary bodycounts when we - you, since it is your invasion, not mine - can't or won't even keep track of the real one accurately and honestly.  

Thanks again for your thoughts, Ian. That we both consider our positions moral, intelligent and hard-thought I hope goes without saying.

Best regards.

Was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand a good thing?

Was the defeat of Germany in WW1 a good thing?

Was the fall of Hitler a good thing?

Was the fall of Saddam a good thing?

One conflict or event synthesises into a new conflict, a new paradigm if you like; the dialectic of history. What is good and what is not good will always relate intimately to previous events, the flow of life so to speak. It is left up to the individual to make sense of it (if that is truly possible).

The opening questions above could (or could not) all relate to one another; and if one answers them in either the positive of negative it will make no difference to our present reality. These questions are simply asking us to offer an opinion, and if possible, qualify same with a hypothetical, an intellectual rationalisation of said opinion.

For example: was the defeat of Germany in WW1 a good thing? Maybe not, if Germany was not defeated then no Treaty of Versailles, no betrayal of the Arabs by the British, basket case Germany would not have embrassed Hitler, who could have enjoyed life as a struggling artist, no WW2, no holocaust, possibly peace and acceptance between Jews and Muslims, a functioning homeland (holy land) for all. It used to be long ago, why not now? 

But we all know this is purely academic, an intellectual wank, something most of us, who contribute to this forum, could be accused of.  I suppose to most it is a type of entertainment, harmless, but in reality rather useless and a waste of energy. At best catharsis, at worst narcism.

The common thread of our (historical) dialectic is conflict, mostly violent conflict, yet many seem to take one side or another depending on their interpretation of, and their relationship to, the consequences of this ever flowing conflict; quite often based on contaminated “facts” and “information”.

The unfortunate truth (about Iraq and the GWOT) is we have simply replaced one violent conflict with another less contained (and potentially explosive) violent conflict, none of it absolutely good or absolutely bad, for their will be winners and losers, who will argue (some with advantage, many not) to their aged days, about the “deeds we did that day”.

In ten, twenty, or thirty years we will most certainly have conflict, it is life’s dialectic, but unless we learn to deal with the violent bit, in a more intelligent, honest and informed manner, then someday we may (will?) be asking ourselves:

Was it a good thing that we that we wasted all those recourses (and international goodwill) invading Iraq (and Iran?), while those lunatics in Pakistan sold a couple of nukes to those lunatics in Indonesia? Pity about Darwin.

I suppose anything could and will happen but I can’t help but feel that anybody calling themselves a human being in this day and age (considering our wonderful arsenal of technological know how in the development, use, sale and distribution of weapons of mass destruction, that one day could/will be in the hands of all and sundry) could contemplate violence as a means to a political end. The stakes are simply too high now. We have no choice but to grow up, or we will end up having a bloody good war and will find out just how good or bad we can really get.

Was it a good thing Darwin was nuked?

A bit early to tell, best wait another 500,000 years or so.

"Ach du Scheiße!", sprach der Koch,
 als er an der Suppe roch.

1. J McPherson: "It is only natural for all political parties of whatever persuasion to try and rewrite history" - too bad about 'The Truth of the Matter,' eh, J?

2. Jay White: "I also believe if Labor were in power in Australia they would have also supported the US." - Labor have 'sold-out,' Jay - or haven't you heard? Wouldn't *want* to hear, more likely; eh, Jay(s)?

3. Ian MacDougall: "Even despite all the carnage in Iraq, the overwhelming majority of Iraqis, from the polls which have been conducted, say the fall of Saddam was worth it."

Oh, really? And they've got a 'democratically elected' govt. as well, I s'pose? - Eh, Ian?

Try it on your effing emus.

-=*=-

Face it, fellas, you're 'pissing it up the wall.' Here we have "the Internet," a true marvel of the modern age; the first and (hopefully not the only) time that 'the sheople' can 'really tell it like it is' (sorry 'bout the Ami-speak; spit, spit!)

And we - actually: *you* - waste it on spouting rubbish.

Too bad.

And shame!

"Was the fall of Saddam a good thing?"

A pity you started this, Ian, because it's in danger of becoming the point. When quite obviously it shouldn't be.

If one were to answer 'Yes', then that is supposed to be a compelling case retrospectively for the invasion. Have I got that right?

You yourself have answered in the affirmative. Then taken the liberty of something like 1000 words to amplify your simple 'Yes'.

But assuming a simple Yes or No would suffice, I believe overwhelmingly most people would answer in the affirmative to the question: "Would the fall of Mugabe be a good thing?"

If that's a casus bellus, then let's roll !!!

But of course it's not. And we don't. It's all just a bit more complicated than that, isn't it?

So too with your own spurious question. Nevertheless I think your 1000 words-or-so of substantive argument is not too bad as a point of departure for the 'Yes' case. When I get a few more spare moments I'd like to take issue with some of the points you've raised.

Timothy Wong, thanks for the link.

 
The Project For a New American Century is just like an old and doddering uncle.  Invincibly wise, these avuncular old rogues are both clinically insane and terminally confused about the world and its events.  We’ve got to get the nukes away from these monkeys. 

 
I was struck earlier in the week by Howard, Keelty and George all telling us how we are safer now from terrorism than in 2001.

 On the PNAC site the same assertion is made on 9-11 2005 by one Gary Scmitt (no nazi jokes please), who provides as evidence such things as:

 The demise of the Taliban in Afghanistan (really?)

 The end of Ba’athist resistance in Iraq (do tell)

 And the piece de resistance “the salve of political reform has begun to take hold in the region, with real elections in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a dramatic reassertion of self-rule in Lebanon”. (it’s OK folks, I’ve got a road map to Pieces)

 
I suspect that John Howard in 2006 is every bit as stupid and wrong as Gary Scmitt (no nazi jokes please) was in 2005.

 
We've got to get the nukes away from these monkeys.

Jack: "No thanks, Ian, I don't care to be herded into 'Have you stopped beating your wife yet?' boxes, and never have. This is a nonsense question. For starters, even if I cared to answer it, which I don't, I couldn't possibly do so with any meaning until and unless you provided me with the full tally of the 'loss' side of the 'regime change' cost-benefit sheet; with a long view of Iraq from ten, twenty, thirty years hence; and with a clear picture of how much al-Qaeda elsewhere has benefitted (or, of course, not) from the enormous diversion that was the fullscale conventional invasion deemed requisite to remove him, especially."
         
When Chou En Lai was asked his opinion of the French Revolution, he reportedly replied "It's too early to tell." Quite true, as history is a continuous review and reassessment of the past. But we avoid the paralysis implicit in that by making the assessment anyway, in the light of present knowledge, knowing that those who come after may well disagree.

So to the question "was the fall of Hitler a good thing?" one could make exactly the same response as you have made here. For ever and ever amen. So, sorry. I cannot provide you with "the full tally of the 'loss' side of the 'regime change' cost-benefit sheet; with a long view of Iraq from ten, twenty, thirty years hence; and with a clear picture of how much al-Qaeda elsewhere has benefitted... "etc, etc. I do not need any such thing to make an assessment in the present, and on present knowledge.

Even despite all the carnage in Iraq, the overwhelming majority of Iraqis, from the polls which have been conducted, say the fall of Saddam was worth it.

After Bush’s announcement of "mission accomplished" the ‘resistance’ gradually got its act together, and proceeded to kill CoW troops and Iraqis. Now for whatever reason, its victims are mainly (Shiite) Iraqis. Wherever the threshold is, Iraq is close to civil war, if not already in it. This is the basis of the common assessment that the whole exercise has been a failure, at least in terms of its aim to bring peace and democracy to Iraq. This is the assessment you get from many sources on the left of politics, and from journalists such as John Pilger, opportunist quacks like Michael Moore and politicians such as Al Gore. (Note: two of the above have their commendable redeeming features.)

It is all deplorable, but on reflection I tend to the view that nothing has really changed in Iraq since. 

Was the fall of Hitler a good thing? Yes, because the alternative was a new dark age in Europe; Churchill’s assessment around the time of the Battle of Britain, and I think the right one. Was the fall of Saddam a good thing? I have no trouble, even today, answering yes to that. But as I said in my previous post, we now know the result of ousting Saddam. We will never know the consequences of leaving him in power, but the possibilities were so horrific in 2002 in my opinion, that the cause of his removal justifies the means.

Someone who has lost a relative in that cause would understandably be disinclined to agree. I would never even try to persuade an Iraqi ‘civilian casualty’ to such a view. I could understand a mother who lost a child in the war saying that the end of all of Saddam’s butchery and genocide could not compensate for her loss.

In World War 2 only volunteers fought overseas in the Australian forces, and there were plenty of them, who signed up ‘for the duration.’ They knew what the stakes were and what the cause was. Conscientious objectors and dissidents were few. These days the army is far more high tech, and mass mobilisation such as that of 1939-45 has no role in it. The down side of that is that those who join the military have no idea what they will be called upon to do before discharge, and may well incline to question the wisdom of the politicians’ decision on any given commitment. The resentment of soldiers over decisions made on what they will have to face by people who have never seen a shot fired in anger, is the theme running through many of Frederick Forsyth’s excellent novels and at least one of Sylvester Stallone’s films. And a host of other writings, including arguably, by yourself in your last post.

That your brother was placed in harm’s way by the political decision to send him to Iraq is of understandable concern to you. Unfortunately, going to wherever you are sent to fight for whatever cause they want you to fight for is the lot of the professional soldier, and agreement to go is a precondition of entry to the military.

"Have you stopped beating your wife?" is a loaded question because both possible answers are bad, with one just worse than the other. "Was the fall of Saddam a good thing?" in my view is in a different class. It is a hard question to answer, because ‘yes’ has so much going for it and comes so easily. Those who answer ‘no’ say that the human cost of the tyrant’s removal was less than the (likely) human cost of leaving him in power. Given his form, that is quite a leap of faith.

People of the Left mainly answered ‘no’, and found themselves
not only defending one of the worst tyrants in history, but keeping the
company of mediaevalists and fascists in public demonstrations, from whom they were reluctant to dissociate themselves, because support (any support) is so craved by them.

Had the Iraqi people ever en masse answered ‘no’ in any way,
then I would have to change my position, and you would be justified.
But they have never done so in any poll, and in three national
elections they have turned out in their millions to the polls, despite
terrorist threats of reprisal if they did so. The easiest way they
could have created mayhem for the CoW was to simply stay away from the polling booths at election time.

Despite the obvious moral difficulties involved, and some not so
obvious (eg, is the life of a Baathist thug worth as much as that of
his victim?) I have joined Christopher Hitchens, Pamela Bone, Norman Geras, Jeff Weintraub and a host of other thinkers on the subject in answering ‘yes’ to the question. It was a difficult decision to
support the CoW action, but by no means impossible, given that one of the promised (and delivered) benefits was the fall, arrest and trial of Saddam. And I still think it was the right one.

I won’t ask it of you again. You have given me your answer in
3,462 words. Two would have sufficed: ‘Too hard’. You wrote in
response to my question, ‘was the fall of Saddam a good
thing?’: Saddam came to power in 1979. It has been in a state of civil war ever since, with Saddam’s Sunni power base having a monopoly of firepower until the CoW invasion. I dare say the death rate due to violence has not changed much in Iraq in that whole time, except that now the Shiites are getting arms and are shooting Sunnis in revenge.

Revenge for a hell of a lot of stuff.

J McPherson If the case was that Hillary Clinton choose to go to Iraq I would have supported it. I also believe most conservatives would have supported her. It had been a running sore for a long stretch of time. The debate now would likely be about the handling of the war if the results were similar. Politics is politics after all.

I also believe if Labor were in power in Australia they would have also supported the US. Ditto the conservatives in Britain. Being in opposition is easy when tough decisions need to be made. There is a lot of latitude for fence sitting.

Roger Fedyk, "(...) Iraq was firstly about oil and was lastly about oil."

No, Roger I think it was much worse than that. The old paradigms just don't  work anymore.

(As for oil, did you know that BP have recently changed their name to "Beyond Petroleum"?) 

Have another look at the PNAC.

The first time I read it, I thought I was reading The Lord of the Rings, and then I realised that these White supremacist, imperialist masturbators were actually serious!

And that we therefore faced an Ogre of extraordinary danger. Or rather a cyclops. These half-wits honestly believe that in the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed are kings. Who are the blind?? That's you and me, Roger (and we get it easy). Those that refuse them will be punished by castration.

With a Tower-of-Babel-like supremacist arrogance and ignorance that defies disgust, that defies defiance, this cabal of murderous emperors "will" "transform the face of Islam", single-handedly, on their own, from the outside. Has anyone ever thought to ask why none of the neo-cons are Muslims themselves??

They certainly never have. Nope. Instead, hands firmly on their own genitalia, they write themselves their own little books to ensure that they all get to have a quick session of pre-ejaculation.

Eg. Fukuyama's End of History ; Huntington's notorious Clash of Civilisations which "proves" that the forever war must occur, and therefore must be prosecuted asap with the maximum amount of overwhelming force such that if they leave a wasteland then at least they "won".

However, one mustn't despair and I don't. Whatever their sick-"minded" delusions, they will lose and lose bad. That portrait of the Riders of the Apocalyse that Bush kneels before and prays to every minute of every single day in of his benighted life are riding the other way.

The thing about the cyclops is that it is in fact a golem. Its feet are of sand and it will drown in the mire of its own pond of blood.

So the Al Kayde (with an apology to the Chaser boys) terrorists killed over 3000 Americans at 9/11. I seem to remember that way back in 17 March 1969, the Americans decided to start bombing a nation the US was not at war with. It was called "Operation Breakfast" and conducted in secret until the New York Times broke the story on May 8, 1969. The country was Cambodia and more than 600,000 Cambodians were killed during the raids. Furthermore, it led to the destruction of Cambodia as a country and gave rise to the Killing Fields of the Pol Pot regime. Did I see or hear any memorial on 17 March? But It's alright, Ma (They're only Asians) and we all know that the American lives are worth much more than the Asian lives.

How ironical that 9/11 also happened at breakfast time.

J McPherson: "The question posed was this: What if all the events after September 11, 2001 had happened exactly as they have, but the person in charge of the White House wasn't Bush, but was in actual fact a Democrat. Not only a Democrat, but a woman (cue image of Hilary Clinton)....

Firstly I think there would have been a concerted effort to white-wash the past Clinton Administration sins. The failure of intelligence and so forth. Remember Bush had only just come to office and much of the 9/11 planning was carried out under the Clinton watch.

Apart from that everything else would have gone along pretty much as is. With the exception of Iraq. However rather than have around 150 000 US troops ringed in a region (Iraq) in a very sixth army kind of way, and because of this allowing Iran some latitudes, this now would not be happening. Iran though would most surely be facing the very real prospect of invasion.

Remember they shall feel our wrath speech?

As to Israel, I would remind you Hillary Clinton has as many Jewish supporters as anyone else. I would find it hard to believe that anything she said or did about Israel would make her the pin-up of the "peacenik" facsists.

J McPherson, I'd be interested to know whether other people (particularly our more right leaning friends) would be capable of seeing a female democrat as a competent chief, if they had had the same results to date.

What your "more right leaning friends" thinks is really irrelevent in this hypothetical situation. The fact is, it would not be the right pulling her to pieces for her no other options foreign policy. It would be the same crew of "peace" fascists and American haters that pulled apart her husband's foreign policies. The same crew that pull apart all American foreign policy irrespective of the President.

The same crew that supported the left movement running directly against Al Gore taking away vital votes and costing him and the Democrats the 2000 election.

Remember the crew that said after one year of George Bush (he would be so bad nobody would ever vote Republican again) people would be thanking them for teaching the Dems a lesson? Allowing for a "real" Democrat to be the next President?

I often wonder what happened to those big mouthed political "intellectuals"? Being a "right" sort of guy I really hope they come back.