Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Hi Ian Macdougall.  I'll answer your questions in reverse. This will be long. Sorry. I take war debates seriously, or not at all.

"Do you think the fall of Saddam was a good thing?"

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.   

You want a cold, hard 'war on terror' strategic guess? You want an answer I reckon an Israeli or an American Treasury official might give you in a decade? Or a Chinese Premier? An arms factory shareholder? A Pakistani jihadi? Osama bin Laden? President John McCain? Or President Al Gore? (President Hillar...no, god forbid..)

Well, I think it's likelier that my answer, all ramifications considered, will turn out to be a 'no' than a 'yes'. But I just can't say, Ian. Was Nazism a bad thing for the Jews? Israel probably wouldn't exist today without Hitler once having existed, so what would a 'yes' to that one mean, Ian - that you wish Israel didn't exist? How very Iranian. But would a 'no' answer mean that you were glad the six million were gassed? Goodness, now you're...Iranian again. 

Point-scoring nonsense. Rhetorical game-playing. The stuff of adolescence and Murdoch tabloid columnists. So shove it up your arse, mate.

Ian, you're not stupid, and you know as well as I do that such questions are an insult to both our intelligences. Closer to home I might as easily ask you: 'Do you think it's a good thing that that little boy lost both his arms during the liberation of Iraq?" You would answer 'No', then I would cackle and say: 'So, how can you support the invasion that caused it, then?" We could both do this ad nauseum.

Which is, by the way, largely what has been been occurring in much of the 'debates' over Iraq forever. Infantile crap. I'd rather spend the morning's sunny hours in the bath with a nuddy picture of Mischa Barton or Orlanda Bloom, having a nice long luxurious wank, frankly. It would produce more of lasting substance on matters Iraq. And I'd feel cleaner afterwards, too.

So let's do something different, Ian. Let's neither of us turn ourselves into rhetorical dancing monkies, eh? I said to TK and MC earlier that I haven't the stomach for much in-depth analysis anymore, but if I am to gird my loins and typing fingers again, then I'll only do so on the assumption that you - all Webdiarists, really, barring a few tedious tyre-kickers - are possessed of a fundamental decency and good faith and generosity. Except by carelessness, I will never call you and your fellow pro-invasionaists  'pro'-war, 'anti'-Arab, 'pleased' to see death and destruction and sorrow, 'happy' about the Abu Ghraibs and Fallujahs that inevitably arise in wars, 'unconcerned' about civilian casualities, 'supportive' of HR abuse, and so on, and so on. I don't for a second doubt that your decision to support the invasion, like mine to oppose it, has been the result of much deep thought, considerable anxiety and, not least, plenty of intellectual and moral courage. 

You don't have to 'prove' such basic credentials of humanity to me, as if I'm the Morality Sergeant Major and you're on parade. I take them as read, the start point of any conversation worth having. I would very much appreciate it if you would extend the same courtesies to me, and especially refrain from accusations, direct or implied, that I somehow 'wish Saddam were still in power', or 'supported him' by opposing his removal...as if these were meaningful tropes with any bearing on or place in a civilised disagreement. We both know that such is, at least, the subconscious underbelly point of your question. And we both, I hope, can be jointly mutually dismissive of the few tedious regulars in here who, unlike you, seriously do regard such a pinning-down of rhetorical angels as constituting serious debate over Iraq.

I'm just not going to answer such a stupid question, Ian. It might even be a decent and fruitful gesture of you to withdraw it. Thanks in advance. 

* *

Now. To the interesting question that has a point, and which I can try to answer: 

In fact, and my alternative plan notwithstanding, I was effectively in Category 3 from a fairly early point, Ian. Part of the point of having 'my' ambassador very publicly make that statement was the diplomatic fulcrum for enhanced Australian leverage such a left-field 'non-reversing' reversal would have created. In public Howard was saying, mock-sternly, that while we were deploying, 'nothing' had been decided about actually fighting. Bulldust for public consumption, but the 'official' line never-the-less. Now, no US ambassador/Administration could have possibly publicly objected to 'my' clarifying statement re: UN requirements. (Privately, on the other hand..!) And knowing that America was already committed to invading; and given a rare high profile as an early 'invasion ally'; what I figured the brief international flurry of attention - doubtless tinged with malevolent schadenfreude (and I reckon jealous admiration) from the Frog et al diplomats - arising from our unexpectedly-introduced US-checking codicil might have done, might just have done, maybe...would have been to 'force' the Yanks to stop merely 'pretending' to strive for a UN-based solution...and actually - through gritted teeth, doubtless privately seething at us - really tried for one. Which, in the long run, I figured then would have made the Iraq position...now infinitely better.

Then, and only then, when the Yanks had s/f/bought together a fair dinkum UN effort - complete with truly international resources, money to pay for it all, seriously armed French/Chinese/Russian/Canadian etc bods as well as just Yank and Brit ones on the ground, joint global Int, a serious and well-thought out post-Saddam nation-building plan especially - would I have backed it. All this - my definition of a UN invasion - is contained in detail in that 'pipe dream' of mine, an alternative cunning plan I still reckon is a lovely little piece of 'Australian Grand Game' strategy, and which I still lament - laugh though you all will - John Howard not having had the balls or imagination to give a whirl. (Keating would have, I reckon...Gareth Evans certainly would have been up for it).

So in a sense, to answer your question clearly, I suppose I was 'idealistically' in Category 2, even though realistically, I knew all along I was effectively in Cat 3 - that 'my' UN route was never going to fly, that if any UN stamp was given it would be nominal only. And as I said, a hijacked, half-hearted UN effort would have equalled no such thing, and been just as damaging to the UN imprimatur in the long run. Because what the Yanks had to that point - late January - engineered was a 'with us or against us' absolutist 'non-choice': do what we say, or f**k off.  Hence the Americans had almost certanily already ensured they'd be stuck, effectively, with a go-it-alone invasion either way, whether under a nominal UN flag or not. This was borne out in the 'coalition' it did put together - in hard military (killing and dying) terms it's been little more than America, plus Britain (sort of)..plus a few others in the easy-peasy spots and jobs. The simple CoW taxpayer bill and casualty tolls are proof of this. The Yanks may as well, in hard logistic/strategic and tactical fighting fighting terms, be on their Pat Malone. (Obviously I say this without any ill-will or prejudice re: the bravery and worth of non-US contributions, IM - including, don't forget, my brother's.)  

Now as I knew it would this solo status is proving to be an unsustainable catastrophe for the US in too many ways to count. Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan. The longer this goes on, the more America's few remaining CoW siblings will dwindle. Especially as democratic governments change. What price British boots staying on the ground in meaningful numbers/spots for long post-Blair, IM...? 

The first Gulf war was a real Joint Fight success story, for both the UN and American leadership. Remember, I was in the army for that one, and saw from the inside of the military-political nexus how benign superpower brute force and deftly inclusive multilateral diplomacy can combine brilliantly to make the world a better place using controlled violence with minimum collateral damage. Don't for a second think that one single Arab state wanted to join that fight, or did so willingly. But what a difference Bush senior's patience and hubris-free leadership made.

The second war, the smaller Bush? Alas...the fatal flaw in both the natural 'turned ideologue' - Marxist to neo-con, say - and the successful father's son is always a chippy hubris that drives them to revolutionary differentiation purely for differentiation's sakes, to exceed established benchmarks even if wisdom or circumstance recommends otherwise. Call it the 'small swinging dick syndrome', I guess. (The journalist Christopher Hitchens is a classic sufferer: it's not enough for that kind of guy to change his ideological position a little...he's got to swing wildly all the way to the other side. Out-piss the biggest pisser he finds in this here new town, and all that...I digress.)

Now it's fairly clear that Bush's naturally affable inclination to want to do stuff 'a bit different' from his dad was swept along by the more substantial current that was the ideological push to assert a paradoxical 'hegemony' over the UN - paradoxical given that the US itself is the dominant driving power at the UN anyway. So the 'go it alone' invasion was at least what some in Bush's WH (thought they) wanted; a deliberate overarching component of the neo-con/unilateralist diplomatic intent of those days. Still, despite me having a natural aversion to copping without protest such fait accompli 'non-choices' of any kind on principle, at core my objection to both a) a sidelined, or b) a railroaded UN in this case was always specific to Iraq, and practical in basis: I just reckoned that unless most UN members were both diplomatically and practically on-board and enthusiastic about it, any sustained Iraq...well, occupation, really, more than invasion and liberation, was from a practical view, a big ask. And as for the US going it alone without even a nominal UN nod - militarily, financially, and logistically...insane. I mean look at the maps, IM. Look at the geo-strategic supply lines from the US. Look at the costings. Look at the f**king neighborhood...I mean without the Chinese, Russians, and Europeans on board as active fulsome partners in this...jesus. It's one thing for the Yanks to take on Granada, Panama, even Vietnam, really, without an international accord...but Iraq - the ME - was and is an entirely new and scary prospect.    

So it has come to pass.    

So while I can't recall exactly when I decided that damage to the UN accord would be equally great whether it was railroaded into scant nominal support for the invasion, or left behind altogether, unlike Margo Kingston I never really seriously countenanced the idea that I was or would end up arguing in support of a UN invasion - mostly, I stress, Ian, because I just never saw the UN caving in to the escalating neo-con 'blackmail'. Quite the reverse: yes, sure, there really is a strong on-principle 'f**k-you Yank' faction among UN member states at the best of times. Maybe the French never would have gone in...UNLESS, aS did Bush senior, you made them a 'diplomatic offer they couldn't refuse'. But Little Bush's ineptitude made it not just easy, but f**king fun for that lot: all that the inept neo-con chest-thrusting in New York really did was hand the French, Germans, Latins, etc - their endless anti-American carping and bitching temporarily schtummed by US popularity post-9/11 - a new megaphone through which to say 'Bite me, Yank'. Dumb.  Dumb.

Actually, double checking right under my nose, Ian,  it looks like it was late January, in that very same 'Alt Plan' piece: the first time I explicitly articulated my opposition, come what may. Yes: 'I oppose an American-coalition invasion and occupation of Iraq, UN-sanctioned or not.' So as you can see, even though in the 'official' position in that same peice - my alternative plan - I was technically leaving the door open for a UN invasion, effectively, in my commentary to it, I'd already conceded the pie-in-the-sky nature of my definition of a 'UN invasion'. (Obviously that '...UN-sanctioned or not' should, strictly speaking, have continued '...except as outlined above.')

All this is kind of moot, anyway. To me it was pretty obvious from about late 2002, just from the scale and pace of the mobilisation, that an invasion of some kind was going to occur, and that everything else would be political/diplomatic/debating sideshow. (Actually, what the hell - my brother, who was pretty heavily involved in high-ish level planning in Britain, made it pretty clear to me in July 2002 - without breaking any laws - that Saddam was toast.) Anyway, by Jan 30 you didn't need inside info to know that: no-one calls up and transports a quarter of a million troops and millions of tons of gear halfway around the world unless they intend to use them. An American by-force occupation of Iraq territory of some degree and status was, in truth, already underway by the time the public debates got going. This, too, added to making that whole process of 'debate' as I saw it - the resolutions, the diplomacy, the UN issue, the good faith efforts of some of us to assess all the various justification, from WMD to HR to terrorism to standing UN resolutions - not just surreal, but offensively so. On the one hand I remember painstakingly pulling apart WH statements, cross-referencing State Department policy, decoding Howard's stuff, reading reams of Iraqi history, Amnesty International HR reports, etc, etc...on the other, thinking the whole time: 'what a waste of time, they're already rolling.'

All, Ian, while gearing up for another year or so of worrying sick on a personal level about my little brother while trying, as the only other knowledgeable military man in our family, to provide my 'loved ones' with the right contextualising balance of a) optimism, b) realism, c) accurate analysis of unfolding events and d) cheerful preparatory fatalism.

Plus, of course, assurances that contrary to the onslaught of propaganda from the Murdochians and my own government, I wasn't a traitor and I didn't want Saddam to 'win'.  (You do not understand what rage is, mate, until you have simultaneously waved goodbye to a war-bound brother with your mum in tears, holding a newspaper column that calls you a Lefty coward and appeaser, while listening to a prime ministerial radio interview that you know for a fact contains baldfaced lies about WMD and terrorist-nexus threats. But I digress.)     

So, to continue on UN mandate matter: against the 'fair accompli' nature of the decision, I'd argue that only the most committed of pro-invasionists - and the deliberately artful, perhaps, such as the high profile polemicists who'd been 'let in on the project'...the Hitchens, the Stephen Hayeses, other Weekly Standardites, et al) - could fail to have been just a tinsy bit peeved about the Clayton's choice on offer. Ian, you can say with justified contempt that a Galloway would 'never' have supported any invasion, come what may, and I'd happily agree with both the claim and, broadly, the distasteful tone. But I reckon I can say with surity and equal distaste, that a hardline pro-invasionist like Doug Feith, beavering away in the Office of Special Plans, had reached exactly the corresponding 'brook-no-other-answer-but-yes-sir-let's-roll!' position as early as Sept/Oct 2002. 

And if some Lefty Ideologue successor to Tony Blair were one day to plonk a gaggle of 'ismic' warriors like Galloway into a contrived Int Cell inside the Brit Ministry of Defence - as the post-Clinton PNAC revolution plonked Feith et al deep inside the Beltway - with the express aim of bodging together a shonky 'case' for supporting a Syrian-Iranian 'liberation' of the Golan Heights and Gaza two or three years down the track...then when it came time for us all to 'debate' the merits of that 'case' at the UN, you'd probably be haughtily inclined - both on principle and perhaps even on specifics (!) - not to want to automatically give Gorgeous George's strategic conceit the world body's legitimising imprimatur - such as it is! - without a fight, too.

No? 

* * *

IM, IMHO the thing to remember about this debate is this: there were honourable arguments 'for' and 'against' invasion. Overwhelmingly, however, the 'for' side - the prosecuting case with the responsibility for winning the world to its cause, your side - chose to take the fast n' slick route: quick fixes, fudges, fibs, distortions, strawman abuse, bullying, fakery, poor logic, arrogance and fear-mongering, and, too often, outright cynical lies.

Not exclusively, not by any means, but overwhelmingly. Not your fault, I know, but it is part of the mournful intellectual legacy you, not me and the antis, must grapple with honestly now.

Because what such short-sighted and disingenuous - and often hateful, hurtful, ugly - intellectual tactics did was this:

a) It made it so much harder for you to get more deperately-needed support for invasion in the first place, since such an approach made UN collectivism impossible, and decent, intelligent people will NOT BE lied to, bullied, patronised, mocked, abused, threatened and emotionally blackmailed...into acquiescent submission. This applies to Muslims no less than me. Keep it in mind if you want to win this 'war on terror'.

b) It increasingly now threatens the entire Iraq project, because too many nations and people whose help you/America desperately needs now, just aren't especially inclined to extend it.

Meaning this:

c) It's WAY past f**king time, Ian, that 'your' lot lost the f**king brittle chips on your shoulders about Iraq; started haul-assing the dickwadded neo-con architects of it - Feith, Wolfowitz and Bolton et al - back from wherever they have scuttled, to publicly 'fess up and admit they f**ked up; that they were petulant children miles out of their league; that they did not have a clue what they were doing, or if they did, it was a f**ked-up clue; that they are real goddamned sorry; and that please, please, please...could the rest of the West give them a hand to sort out the mess?

IM, you don't ask for help to fix a f**k-up by calling the people whose help you now need...yet more nasty names, directly or by implication. If you invasionists care more about winning the Iraq invasion, liberation, occupation...and democratisation - it's only 3/4 done, and it's going backwards fast - then it's up to 'your' side in that debate, not mine, to shift our way for a salving mutual consensus. Start by embracing a bit of post-invasion SNAFU humility here, is my advice. Me, I am happy to 'muck in' and fight the West out of the shit in Iraq if it is still possible whether or not you concede the SNAFU - my bruised ego is just fine. But most bruised egos, epecially at the national level, are still smarting from being treated like shit by Bush's shitheads. And until the arrogant failed and failing jerk-offs who got us into this mess - the aforementioned Hitchens-Weekly Standard-Murdoch-CoW axis, who have f**ked up in Iraq thoroughly - stop braying and braying and braying at the anti-invasion Western world, exactly as they have brayed and brayed at brayed at us from day one, like tantrum-throwing children trying to avoid facing up to their f**-up by bullying everyone even harder to agree with them...then the Western 'divisions' they wail about aren't going to 'heal'. 

Get the chips off your shoulders, invasion supporters. Stop demanding answers to pointless, unanswerable Western Civilisational Loyalty Pledge questions like: 'Do you think the removal of Saddam was a good thing?'

Anyone who thinks that either the 'war on terror' or the Iraq occupation now pivots or has ever pivoted on such infantile reductionism is, simply, not serious about where the post-9/11 world currently stands.

I've just read an article that posed what I thought was an interesting question and it made me think about prejudices, as apposed to convictions.

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 Whitehouse wasn't Bush, but was in actual fact a Democrat. Not only a Democrat, but a woman (cue image of Hilary Clinton)....

Bush has obviously gone to extreme efforts to paint himself as a tough and competent Commander in Chief, despite the current chaos caused by him in two Middle Eastern countries.

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.

Hey Jack. Since I saw this report, I haven't been able to stop shaking my head.

FORT EUSTIS -- Months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from developing plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday.

In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said "he would fire the next person" who talked about the need for a post-war plan.

Rumsfeld did replace Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff in 2003, after Shinseki told Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to secure post-war Iraq.

I can't believe Rumsfeld is a moron. So far, I am inclined to think that a permanent state of chaos was the objective. That way, there will never be a right time for the US to hand Iraq back to the Iraqis. Not until the recoverable oil is gone, anyway.

In the papers on Monday: “Prisoners released from [Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison] last week spoke of routine torture of terrorism suspects. On Wednesday, 27 prisoners were hanged in the first mass execution since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.”

And last week:

As new figures show the numbers of civilian deaths in Iraq spiralling sharply upwards, the nation's most influential moderate Shiite leader has abandoned attempts to restrain his followers, admitting there is nothing he can do to prevent the country sliding towards civil war. ...

In a dismal assessment, a new Pentagon report has revealed that the numbers of attacks and civilian casualties in Iraq have risen sharply in recent months as sectarian violence has engulfed larger areas of the country. Deaths have risen by 1000 a month.

The quarterly report shows that the number of attacks over the past four months increased by 15 per cent and the number of Iraqi casualties rose by 51 per cent to more than 3000 violent deaths a month.

Over the longer term, the surge is even more grim. Weekly attacks have doubled from about 400 in the northern spring of 2004 to nearly 800 in recent weeks. The number of daily casualties has increased from fewer than 30 a day in 2004 to more than 110 a day in recent weeks.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Sunday: “Iraq is a better place for Saddam having been gone.”

Mr Howard’s propensity for viewing the situation in Iraq through rose-tinted glasses has become legendary. But what dark vision assails him as he waddles through the streets of Sydney on his regular morning walks?

After reminding reader’s (once again) that Mr Howard “was in Washington at the time of the [Sept 11] attacks”, the article notes that “he fears a similar attack on towering office blocks in downtown Sydney.”

“An attack on a major sporting event, a plane, a big building. Every time I go for a walk in the morning I see those buildings and thoughts go through my head. I have to be honest and say that,” he said.

The man has been spooked. And he may well be deluded. He should retire.

Christopher Hitchens was interviewed last night by Tony Jones on ABC-TV’s Lateline program. Hitchens looked ill, but was as arrogant and combative as ever. He chided Jones as a schoolmaster would a dull schoolboy. By some accounts, Hitchens gave Jones a fair old ‘bitchslapping’.

But what exactly was Hitchens’ point again? Well, ostensibly it all went to supporting President George W. Bush’s case for a ‘linkage’ between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks. He referred approvingly to GWB’s own dull-schoolboy assertion featured in the previous segment:

REPORTER: What did Iraq have to do with that?

GEORGE W. BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?

REPORTER: The attack on the World Trade Center?

GEORGE W. BUSH: Nothing, except for it’s part of – and nobody’s ever suggested in this Administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack – Iraq was a ... Iraq ... the lesson of September the 11th is take threats before they fully materialise, Ken.

Or, as Hitchens then himself somewhat clumsily paraphrased it: “The removal of Saddam Hussein was for the next attack so that it wouldn’t come.” (Does Hitchens moonlight as GWB’s speechwriter?)

Anyway, Jones put it to Hitchens that...

At least one key witness to the events within the White House immediately after the 9/11 attacks, the former counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke, says that advisers in the White House were bent on attacking Iraq in retaliation, whether or not Saddam Hussein had anything to do with al-Qaeda.

Hitchens roundly rejected Clarke’s view that there was no linkage between Saddam and al-Qaeda, pointing out that Clarke had previously said in 1999, in relation to the US attack on a chemical facility in Sudan, that there was indeed a link.

Anyway, said Hitchens, Clarke is now being partisan and is not to be trusted. The bottom line is that even Clarke said there was a linkage, and although he has since repudiated that view, he just can’t be trusted anyway.

So there! That stitches up Clarke – to Hitchens’ satisfaction, anyway.

Jones then cited the recent US Senate committee report that found no linkage between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Hitchens made even shorter work of that – notwithstanding he doesn’t appear to have actually read the report itself, but rather “at least one very trenchant critique of this report”. He nevertheless witheringly dismisses the report as “half-baked and unfinished”, based apparently upon what he has read by an indeterminate number of unnamed critics of an only partially-released report.

Hmm... Perhaps the only ‘bitchslapping’ was of the viewers’ entitlement to honest and objective analysis.

N.B. The preceding remarks were originally posted elsewhere, but may be of interest here. And yes, Hitchens touched upon at least a couple of other points in that interview, which I haven't had time to consider here (others may care to take those up).

“And also I would be interested to know: do you think the fall of Saddam was a good thing?”

The consequences of our collective naivety speak for itself. Saddam was a brutal torturer, rapist and murderer; the America CIA and military likewise along with the (American trained) Iraqi army, death squads and assorted sectarian militia (no need to provide links). Iraq is the disaster the more level headed commentators (including George Bush and Dick Cheney after the first Iraq war) warned us of.

As I stated in an earlier post the removal of Saddam is the only thing that supporters of this war can salvage from the embarrassing consequences of choosing to support an (ill planned) adventure that was always bound to fail. An adventure that we now all know was sold to us based on lies and deceit.

Now all that is left to salvage from this debacle, is which bunch of torturers, murderers and rapists do you prefer?

Maybe the ones with god on their side.

Jack, in my experience, and at whatever stage we choose to refer to, people fall into 3 categories over the invasion of Iraq. There are (1) those, like me, who support/ed it; (2) those who would support only if it is/was sanctioned by the UN, and (3) there are those who would never support it - like, say, George Galloway.

At the link you provided, you said (on Jan 30, 2003)

"The Australian government should advise the US Ambassador, and then publicly announce, that Australia will continue the deployment of her committed military assets in preparation for American-led military activities, but that Australia will not participate in any invasion of Iraq without a new and rigidly-limiting UNSC resolution authorising this as a collective UN action."

I take it that that put/s you into category 2.

The UN could enter into "collective UN action," hoping perhaps that it would not develop into something like the Korean experience of 1950-53. But, given Saddam's record of respect for the UN and its resolutions, a UN invasion of Iraq would probably have been much the same as the CoW invasion. At least, there are no grounds for assuming otherwise.

You ask John Wojdylo, wherever he is: "Where are you on this magnificent fifth anniversary of 9/11, this three year, five month and twenty two day celebration of the invasion, liberation and occupation of Iraq? Where is your childish certitude, your personal abuse of my opposition to that folly?"

I can't speak for JW, but just out of curiosity, are you still in category 2, or have you quietly shifted to number 3?

And also I would be interested to know: do you think the fall of Saddam was a good thing? 

Hey MC, hey TK.

Trawling back over the last five draining years for this piece was just the saddest thing. Watching all the bits fall into place, via the recorded arguments. Seems inevitable now. Maybe because it seems increasingly likely that it was, all along, from about 12 Sept.

But you have to ask, don't you: has a man like Howard - men like Beazley, Bush, Blair, Murdoch, all of those 9/11 incumbents still hanging about trying vainly to fight the 'last war', like superannuated Churchills - do they have absolutely no idea about psychology, about asymmetric threats, about terrorism...about the most basic principles of human nature? About what makes people tick? How to wind them best to your own advantage?

I thought they were supposed to be the politicians.

Surely they must recognise that the key to getting moderate Muslims 'on board' as cultural bulwarks against the Islamist nutters is...well, the very opposite of what we're doing: blunt demands for loyalty chants, ideals lists, beachside riots, law and order scares...oh yeah, conventional invasions of anti-Islamist ME secular dictatorships with no post-dictator plan...wedging, dogwhistling...all that sort of dumbly self-defeating stuff? 

Do they seriously think Muslims are stupid Sand Niggers, waiting passively for cultural directives from Whitey? Can our leaders simply not imagine that young Muslim men worldwide have exactly the same emotional ranges as all young men - brittle chippiness, impulsiveness, deep pride, latent potential rage...and arrogance, overcompensated insecurity, love, humility, recklessness, humour, ambition...where is our imagination? Yeah, sure, there are irredeemable recidivist kooks a-foot, too, but that's the point, isn't. Parsing things delicately, not going the whole 1.6 billion or so holus bolus. 

Simple stuff, I would have thought. Sometimes it's hard not to see the widening chasms and hardening positions as having been craved, nurtured, sought...all along, and not only by Osama's grubs.

Me, I have no stomach for much in-depth discussion of all this any more. There's not a lot of point, is there. The cards have been tossed, essentially. We just have to wait and hope we live long enough to see where they stop falling.

It's still immensely sad, though, because I loved the old idea of America, the West...and though I don't know what the world is going to look like in a decade, or two, or five, I suspect it will never again in my lifetime look as sweet and good as rendered by post-WW2 American decency, leadership and aspiration. Why they ever allowed themselves to get sucker-punched so bad, I will never know.  

Osama and his fanatical ilk don't trouble me all that much, even now. Never did. Let's face it, the worst your enemies can do is kill you. Big deal.

But yourself, your friends...well, you can really hurt yourself and your mates bad.

Right on cue, to assist the Hon Leader of the Opposition, the ABC news feed presents War deprives children of education, study finds: 

The new research, published by Save The Children, shows schools are being destroyed, teachers killed and children being recruited as soldiers in countries like Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Nigeria.

OK, so far.

Right on its heels, sporting an oversized flyboy suit, something that makes the true-blue heart swell with pride, in Defence dubs 'smart bomb' tests a success:

They use Global Positioning System (GPS) technology and can be deployed day or night, in all weather conditions.

From The Weekend's 9/11 Horror-Fest Will Do Osama bin Laden's Work For Him: 

What has changed, grotesquely, is the aftershock. Terrorism is 10% bang and 90% an echo effect composed of media hysteria, political overkill and kneejerk executive action, usually retribution against some wider group treated as collectively responsible. This response has become 24-hour, seven-day-a-week amplification by the new politico-media complex, especially shrill where the dead are white people. It is this that puts global terror into the bang. While we take ever more extravagant steps to ward off the bangs, we do the opposite with the terrorist aftershock. We turn up its volume. We seem to wallow in fear.

I guess it all makes sense, if we believe the Indonesian kid who has his hand blown off by one of our cluster bomblets will be grateful it was parked in the rice field with precision. 

If I'm not mistaken t'is the spoor of controversial French naturist Dr 'Jacques'* 'just stun the bugger with a stick to get the close-up in the can, lads' Woodforde.

* Silent P, e, t, e, r

A pleasure as ever, man. Been a loooong five years, non? Any idea when these jokers are gunna trot out the punchline and let us all get back to normality...?

John might be keeping his head down. Did the math, as m'Jay says.

That pompous tw*t Christopher Hitchens (Lateline 11/9) was bad enough, rumbling and grumbling and drawling and slurring the Shopping Channels’ Road to 9/11 Republican Congressional campaign propaganda, in his usual bullying style. The whole Hitlerian batch glistened and steamed like a fresh-hatched turd in the Lateline  moonlight. That it carried no weight was mostly because Hitchens, once of some intellectual heft, is now merely a leering vaudeville clown in serious need of a professional claque. A blimp in need of tow cable.

But then next day, along came poor silly old Gerald Henderson, beating the same cheap tin drum and frantic to defend to the last bullet the Howard-Bush Iraq WMD lie, (A lesson the West could not ignore, SMH ,12 September). He doesn’t mention the ultimate “case of double-dip appeasement” – the Australian Wheat Board’s huge $300 million bribe to Saddam.

That most depraved bribe, out of Australian farmers’ pockets, had every appearance of sanction by one of our sillier ministers, Alexander Downer. The same Downer who doesn’t like to read things, and also one of the early tub-thumpers for the US administration’s Iraq invasion. Meanwhile, we took our eyes off Afghanistan, with all that opium and Osama. Now that’s what I’d call a double-dip, if ever there was one.

Who gets the money this time? Are these serious attempts to “commemorate the dead” of the World Trade Centre atrocity? Or of the many thousands killed in Iraq and the billions wasted by a corrupt US administration and its corrupt allies?

Take a look at your nearest state school or public hospital, and decide whether we need to waste lives and money on Howard’s wicked Iraq fiasco.

And don’t forget next month’s anniversary for that unfashionable terrorist incident, when Australian and Indonesian politicians, police and officials connived at the killing of hundreds aboard the SIEV-X. Just to garner the xenophobe vote.

In that act, we were no better then than the teenager who just murdered the Afghan-Australian governor of Paktia province, Hakim Taniwa. You won’t see much mention of either act of terrorism in today’s wallowing orgy of post “9/11” self congratulation.

Commissioner Keelty won’t mention it, for instance. None of the people on boring unfashionable SIEV-X nor Hakim Taniwa were TV or sporting heroes, mate. No true Australian values. Bloody foreigners. Please explain.

Speaking of which…. I bet any latterday New Guard parasites planning a P&O date-rape cruise would gladly sign up for “Australian values,” then whiz back onto Cronulla beach for a drunken pantomime with Union Jacks.

The idea has the jackboot rhythm of the ugly Howard-Hanson lockstep.

Have no part of it.

Having destroyed Fallujah to save it, Washingtonpost.com reports that Anbar Is Lost Politically:

Devlin reports that there are no functioning Iraqi government institutions in Anbar, leaving a vacuum that has been filled by the insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq, which has become the province's most significant political force, said the Army officer, who has read the report. Another person familiar with the report said it describes Anbar as beyond repair; a third said it concludes that the United States has lost in Anbar.

Surprise! Surprise! The unjustified, criminal attack on Iraq has created the ideal conditions for al-Qaeda to thrive. Mission accomplished?!