So you've sunk to making cheap assumptions that those who are against brutal (and by most accepted standards, illegal) invasions of other states are automatically supporters of Saddam? You have also failed to even mention Israel, by any definition a 'rogue state' heavily armed with weapons of mass destruction which in the past 20 or so years has launched attacks on the Lebanon, Tunisia, Iraq, and of course the genocide on the Palestinians. Apparently that's fine with you.

Many countries (perhaps the majority), many of them American allies, mistreat their own people, but we don't invade them with massive force.

Applying your logic, none of us would be here right now - rather than wait for the Soviet Union to crumble, we should simply have tried to attack the Warsaw Pact and imposed democracy on it.

Of course DU weaponry has awful effects, but so does practically any element of the modern arsenal - from the lowest to the highest forms of technology. Napalm victims suffer for years afterwards from the stuff continuing to smoulder beneath their skin, unexploded ordnance kills and maims for decades afterwards and the victims of Saddam's gas attacks in northern Iraq are seeing their children being born (or not) with the most appalling deformities and long-term defects. This is even before we approach the psychological effects of mass bombardment, dislocation and unimaginable anxiety.

without going into distasteful detail, DU weapons are NOT in the same league as napalm, nerve gas or cluster munitions. If you think napalm burns for years underneath people's skin then you have no knowledge of basic physics. DU (U238) is an alpha emitter which turns into uranium oxide dust on burning. It is carcinogenic, particularly when inhaled, also toxic, and will remain so for billions of years, cycling through the food chain again and again. Without doubt it will cause birth defects. It is not essential militarily and the U.S. Navy has already abandoned its use. You also failed to address the main point being made -protective clothing is compulsory for British troops approaching a DU contaminated site, but it seems to be OK for the U.S. to pour literally tons of it into the centre of Baghdad - i don't see the Iraquis wearing NBC suits, do you?

Aside from being barely coherent, you fail to address the point I made: significant parts of the Iraqi population were implicated in Saddam's tyranny - they had everything to lose with the fall of their leader, not least their own lives at the hands of a vengeful population.

Leaving aside your cheap ad hominem attack, your point seems to be that the iraqui forces were essentially cowards motivated by fear of the U.S. and of the regime. Cowards do not attack tanks in pick-up trucks and buses. Why won't you admit that many of them fought bravely, misguided or not - or will you continue to dehumanise them?

The behaviour of the Iraqi people upon bursting into the plush residences of their former oppressors gives some indication of what would happen should they get their hands on such people.

Your last few posts have been great. But trying to argue with Ben is close to cracking your nut against the proverbial. In the now locked thread, I presented many of the same arguments you have put forward, and more.

While you have received what you yourself describe as a patronising tone, all I get are asinine jibes or now-not-at-all-funny references to what Ben perceives as being my overall political objectives. Which is the creation of a fourth Reich with Saddam as the head of the Eastern Sector. Or something.

Ben - only the other day I said that I would eat humble pie if I was proved wrong about Iraq and all you could offer was scorn. More crucially, you failed to address any of the points served up.

Do you really think that the Americans are going to stick around for "as long at takes" in a country where, if we put aside the exuberance shown when pulling over bronze statues, they are viewed with suspicion and in some cases hostility? Do you really think they are going to risk even more lives trying to create a democracy out of what has already quickly becoming a patchwork of warring factions?

We have the Kurds doing exactly what I predicted they would do. We have Shia Muslims being killed by their own kind because they are either too "westernised" or not from the correct tribe. And the war isn't even over yet. Do you really think the Kurds are going to listen? They have just taken Kirkuk, a city which they have coveted for decade. It is the key, for many, to the creation of an independent Kurdistan. Which makes the Turks very nervous, eliciting threats of a Turkish military action. The US says the Kurds will out. But what if they don't? Trouble is a-brewing.

And then we have the Shias in the south-east of the country. These guys are perhaps more in line with al-Qaeda and its ilk than Saddam ever was, and not even a week has passed since the "liberation" and already one of the main men, a man respected by Tony Blair, has been assassinated. As time goes on, it is going to get worse. Do you really expect the Americans to get involved in trying to stop this internecine bickering? Well, do you?

And then, as Dixie pointed out, there is the problem with the chaos that has ensued in the cities overrun by coalition forces. Already, it appears that the new "authorities" cannot keep a lid on it. Only time will tell here, though. The looting can only go on until everything has been ransacked.

Ben, you appear to trust the Americans. Well, good for you. I do not. At all. Their objectives are swathed in flowery speech and peace-mongering rhetoric, but this is all for show. If it works, good. If it fails, they'll make up some other cock-and-bull story and spin it to us through their publicity agents - oops, the media. Already the wheels have been set in motion for their oil companies to move in (I can already see the $$$ signs appearing in the eyes of Bush's inbred relatives who all have seats on the board), accompanied by a pro-Zionist "governor".

OK, the war has freed the Iraqi people from a vicious dictator. But what has it given them? Already the exuberance has started to die down, as many have retreated to their homes to defend them against the new power in the defeated cities, the looters. Give it a few weeks, and many of these smiling happy people will be wishing that Saddam had not been ousted at all. Give it two years, and America itself will be wishing that Saddam had not been ousted at all.

But I think we are all missing the big point here. This war has "freed" the Iraqi people, but at the beginning no one was talking about this. All we heard about was "weapons of mass destruction", "al-Qaeda camps" and "how we need to get rid of Nasty Saddam, who was bullied as a child".

No weapons of mass destruction have been found. I am of the opinion that Blix and Co. were on the brink of finding little of any consequence, and that this is what pushed Bush to take action they way he did (with Blair in tow, natch).

No al-Qaeda camps have been found. Search as they might, the zealots are not there. Story forgotten.

And as the propaganda benefits of the statue-pulling stories show, some people are even beginning to say that Saddam himself is not important - just in case he manages to get away.

If WMDs and al-Qaeda do exist in Iraq, they will be found in Tikrit. But Ben, you have even dismissed this as a result of your being caught up in the euphoria of the glorious American victory.

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:
So you've sunk to making cheap assumptions that those who are against brutal (and by most accepted standards, illegal) invasions of other states are automatically supporters of Saddam?

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Not really - it's just that you're adopting an incredibly self-righteous tone while at the same time advocating a course that, had it been taken, would have had the indisputable (and considerable) demerit of leaving Saddam where he was.

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:
You have also failed to even mention Israel, by any definition a 'rogue state' heavily armed with weapons of mass destruction which in the past 20 or so years has launched attacks on the Lebanon, Tunisia, Iraq, and of course the genocide on the Palestinians. Apparently that's fine with you.

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No it isn't fine with me - and neither is the gag-reflex that causes so many to splutter about Israel whenever Iraq is mentioned. Would the Palestinians have been any better off by leaving Saddam in place? Doubtful.

Would an isolationist America be likely to play the essential role it needs to play if a lasting settlement is to be achieved by the Israelis and Palestinians? Hardly.

One can rehearse the appalling acts committed in the name of Israeli maximalism till the cows come home - would they amount to an argument for leaving Saddam where he was? No.

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:
Applying your logic, none of us would be here right now - rather than wait for the Soviet Union to crumble, we should simply have tried to attack the Warsaw Pact and imposed democracy on it.

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You don't seem remotely interested in anyone's "logic" but your own. The Warsaw Pact, like present China, was a huge given that it would have been suicide to try to overthrow. As various anti-war commentators never tire of repeating, the West played a large role in buttressing Saddam for many years - if anything, countries like the US and UK have a responsibility to clear up some of the messes they helped create.

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:
If you think napalm burns for years underneath people's skin then you have no knowledge of basic physics.

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First: well done for adopting the patronising tone that you fumed about me displaying. Really: well done.

While my knowledge of physics is indeed pretty basic (B at GCSE, fwiw!) I recall vividly an article by John Pilger about the aftermath of US bombing in Cambodia where he described meeting people who, years later, were suffering from napalm burns that continued to "smoulder". Maybe Pilger was being overly metaphorical, but I think we both understand what he was probably getting at.

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:
DU (U238) is an alpha emitter which turns into uranium oxide dust on burning. It is carcinogenic, particularly when inhaled, also toxic, and will remain so for billions of years, cycling through the food chain again and again. Without doubt it will cause birth defects. It is not essential militarily and the U.S. Navy has already abandoned its use.

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Why do they use it then?

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:
You also failed to address the main point being made -protective clothing is compulsory for British troops approaching a DU contaminated site, but it seems to be OK for the U.S. to pour literally tons of it into the centre of Baghdad - i don't see the Iraquis wearing NBC suits, do you?.

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In fairness, you don't see many Iraqis wearing body armour either - very unfair. Certainly if what you say is true then the use of these weapons is something to be condemned - but you're mixing this all together with separate issues, building up a composite of the Great Satan that isn't really meant to be argued with or challenged... it's simply a rhetorical club for you to beat opponents over the head with.

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:Leaving aside your cheap ad hominem attack, your point seems to be that the iraqui forces were essentially cowards motivated by fear of the U.S. and of the regime. Cowards do not attack tanks in pick-up trucks and buses. Why won't you admit that many of them fought bravely, misguided or not - or will you continue to dehumanise them?

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Leaving aside your shrill ex cathedra denunciations you seem to be trying to introduce this strange and irrelevant question of "bravery versus cowardice" into the debate. I've not mentioned either of these and you seem constitutionally incapable of acknowledging that many of those who put up resistance were lackeys of the regime whose fate was tied up with Saddam's and the poor bastards they forced to fight. Your perspective on the conflict seems to originate from Syria.

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:
No, it shows what happens when you cause complete chaos and social breakdown with a massive invasion. Elements of the population have looted everything, hospitals, schools, palaces also. Ordinary iraqui families are being robbed and murdered right now - the palaces and villas were the easiest targets because they were abandoned.

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The Harlequinesque tone of this last paragraph is revealing. On the one hand we have the palaces of Saddam, Aziz et al looted because they were abandoned rather than because (perish the thought) people actually disliked (too strong a word?) the regime; on the other hand you have "ordinary families" being robbed and murdered (is this before or after the "abandon" their homes? Who are these "elements" you seem unwilling properly to identify?) - and all of it, of course the "fault" of the US and British.

Really it seems you'd have been far happier with the Ba'athist boot remaining firmly across the throats of ordinary Iraqis - just so long as they weren't nicking dvds, huh?

Really it's like listening to someone chunter on about how South Africa's "gone to hell now the blacks are in charge".

I provided a variety of links to try and help you get a little perspective on the events of the past few days - two of which were reports by anti-war journalists themselves - but you appear to have decided yourself what the situation is. I doubt that someone with a contemptible understanding even of basic physics (ie: myself!) has much chance of suggesting alternative interpretations to you.

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:
Elements of the population have looted everything, hospitals, schools, palaces also.

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Originally posted by Samuelnorton:
all I get are asinine jibes or now-not-at-all-funny references to what Ben perceives as being my overall political objectives. Which is the creation of a fourth Reich with Saddam as the head of the Eastern Sector. Or something.

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Nah. You just hate Jews and use practically any platform available to bang on about the Zionist conspiracies you see everywhere - never bothering to provide anything like hard evidence, simply making a few lame innuendos and beseeching others to "make the connections".

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The Warsaw Pact, like present China, was a huge given that it would have been suicide to try to overthrow.

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We "argued" this one before, Ben. OK, the Warsaw pact was huge, and genuinely threatening. So there is no way we would have decided to attack it.

But I will ask the same question again now as I did back then. Does the relative strength of an adversary have anything to do with how you view - or should view - its politics? Or is it just right to attack those whom you are confident of defeating, without any great risk?

The contradiction that you cannot wriggle out of is that if Saddam actually was a threat to the world (as Bush et al keep bleating prior to this little imbroglio) he would have been treated with kid gloves. Because, in your own words, any other action would have been "suicide".

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Originally posted by ben:
Nah. You just hate Jews and use practically any platform available to bang on about the Zionist conspiracies you see everywhere - never bothering to provide anything like hard evidence, simply making a few lame innuendos and beseeching others to "make the connections".

Also: this talking over my head shit you have taken to doing only makes you look foolish - so continue, by all means.

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I threw just little "Zion" fish in there to test you, and you didn't disappoint. Once again, you picked on the otherwise irrelevant passage and ignored everything else (namely, all of which was pertinent to this debate).

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Originally posted by ben:
...this talking over my head shit you have taken to doing only makes you look foolish - so continue, by all means.

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Originally posted by Samuelnorton:
I feel like using the school bully analogy again.

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Politics is the art of the possible, any fule kno' that. Also: I made an important point about our responsibility to sort out the mess we created - which doesn't apply in the case of China or what used to be Warsaw Pact. There are other factors: China, ghastly as it is, at least displays a degree of rationality in its conduct on the international stage - never something you could accuse Saddam of.

You try to reduce things down to simplistic playground metaphors and you'll never have any chance of understanding the way the world works - you'll just be displaying the hallmarks of a rigid and unsubtle mentality.

They use it for a very sick reason Ben, and i don't really expect you to believe me.

Depleted Uranium as we said is highly radioactive, at its most dangerous as an aerosol form incidentally, where particles are easily inhaled or ingested. The nuclear industry ends up with hundreds of tons of the stuff, it's what's left over when the U235 (weapons material) is separated out.

DU is an excellent anti-tank material, very heavy, and very hard. It is also pyrophoric, meaning that it catches fire and burns very intensely after impact, incinerating everything around it, and incidentally turning into that deadly areosol form.

The nuclear industry desperately needed to unload all this U238 they had, there was so much of it it was becoming a problem, so they decided to promote it to the U.S. Army.

They give them it for free.

The Army gets a great anti-armour round, the nuclear industry gets free waste disposal, everybody's happy, huh?

Oh yeah, i forgot to mention that recently the nuclear industry admitted there's probably a certain amount of plutonium in there too. Seems there was a mix-up at the plant.

One piece of plutonium the size of a grapefruit would be enough to kill every person on the planet it's so toxic.

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Originally posted by Samuelnorton:
I threw just little "Zion" fish in there to test you, and you didn't disappoint.[/i]

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How very clever of you. Really your posts are the product of a superior mind. I prostrate myself before your intellect.

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I was not talking over you, but through you. In fact, the aim was to have it go one ear and out the other. Which is the way things usually are, no?

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Originally posted by ben:
China, ghastly as it is, at least displays a degree of rationality in its conduct on the international stage - never something you could accuse Saddam of.

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Fair point. But until 1990 Saddam was apparently "rational". Only after the invasion of Kuwait did he become a rogue. We in the West have, over the past few days, had the media offering us the mantra "twenty-five years of madness has come to an end". Do they not realise that the first dozen of these passed us by?

Kim Jong-Il hasn't invaded anyone. Yet. He hasn't lauched a weapon of mass destruction. Yet. Is he any more or less rational than Saddam Hussein? Is he any more or less rational than the Chinese leadership - apparatchiks who condone the sale of body parts and the starvation of their own people?

What and what is not "rational" is in the eye of the beholder. What's more, you sound like one of those Hobsbawmesque commentators who continue to argue in favour of Stalin because his mass-murder was somehow "rational". OK, so this is the extreme end, but the method is the same.

You are clutching at straws - why don't you just admit that you are only comfortable waging war against and enemy you know for certain you can defeat, instead of hiding behind this pathetic "making up for the past" crap? You make the American government sound like a holy order.

"Politics is the art of the possible". Maybe, but it is a kop-out, and a principle that has shaped modern politics into the game of expediency that we can witness at every turn today. The very idea of having and retaining a set of guiding principles has disappeared down the memory hole, save for those who are now resigned to fighting from the fringes.

My own reasons, as ought to be apparent from everything I've said, are nowhere near congruent with those of Donald Rumsfeld for supporting this military action. I've not set myself up as any sort of spokesman or apologist for the neo-cons - I just believe the world will be a better place as a result of the removal of Saddam.

It's kind of bizarre to hear various people crow about the fact that no WMD has been found yet - as though they believe that Saddam behaved entirely in good faith on this issue. There are still huge amounts of material produced that was never accounted for and anyone who thinks that Saddam had neither the will nor the motive nor the opportunity for concealing such stocks is, I think, vastly mistaken about the sort of character he was.

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Originally posted by ben:
No I would be equally comfortable waging war against an enemy I was certain would defeat me. Duh.

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Don't be silly.

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I just believe the world will be a better place as a result of the removal of Saddam.

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OK, I don't doubt you on this. But to go along with the lie that led to the war in the first place? Is it right to base an entire campaign, to overturn the government of another country at a stroke, on the basis of a lie?

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It's kind of bizarre to hear various people crow about the fact that no WMD has been found yet - as though they believe that Saddam behaved entirely in good faith on this issue. There are still huge amounts of material produced that was never accounted for and anyone who thinks that Saddam had neither the will nor the motive nor the opportunity for concealing such stocks is, I think, vastly mistaken about the sort of character he was.

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Und so weiter. But surely if Saddam was the "sort of character" you think he was, he might have used these weapons by now, even if it meant throwing petri dishes at the oncoming American tanks?

Stick with your initial "making the world a better place" argument. It makes a lot more sense that trying to hold up the WMD myth. The invasion was launched on the pretext of Saddam having WMDs - to accuse people of crowing when they are simply pointing out the (rather inconvenient) fact that none have been found is... well, work it out for yourself.

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If you could indicate to me a period when "retaining a set of guiding principles" was ever anything more than the mess of aspiration, compromise and self-justification that it is today I'd be very surprised.

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Originally posted by ben:
The Harlequinesque tone of this last paragraph is revealing. On the one hand we have the palaces of Saddam, Aziz et al looted because they were abandoned rather than because (perish the thought) people actually disliked (too strong a word?) the regime; on the other hand you have "ordinary families" being robbed and murdered (is this before or after the "abandon" their homes? Who are these "elements" you seem unwilling properly to identify?) - and all of it, of course the "fault" of the US and British.

Really it seems you'd have been far happier with the Ba'athist boot remaining firmly across the throats of ordinary Iraqis - just so long as they weren't nicking dvds, huh?

Really it's like listening to someone chunter on about how South Africa's "gone to hell now the blacks are in charge".

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To be fair, I think that's a distortion of what Dixie was saying about the looting that's going on.

Of course it's a good thing that the regime has been overthrown, and I don't think anyone is arguing that the marines should be standing guard outside Tariq Aziz's house to make sure his bidet isn't stolen.

However, now that the Ba'athist authority has collapsed in Baghdad, it is the responsiblity of the occupying power to make sure that order is upheld and, most importantly, to ensure that the sick and injured are protected. As it is, hospitals have been looted and ransacked while the US failed to intervene. That's a bit more serious than "nicking DVDs".

Iraqi medical centres are already seriously under-resourced, and there will inevitably be casualties of this war in Baghdad for some time to come. Who is going to be caring for them, in the short term, and how will be die as a consequence of the US apparent unwillingness to restore order.

I don't think it's good enough to answer these kind of questions by simply saying "I suppose you'd prefer it if Saddam was in power". The US has some very serious questions to answer about its conduct of this war (even leaving aside questions about the legitimacy of the war in the first place). I hope it's going to face up to its responsiblities, but considering the contempt it's shown for international law to date there's not an awful lot of reason to be.

Finally, although it's been gone over already, I think the picture that Dixie initially posted does raise an important point. It's important not to draw too many conclusions from the scenes that were shown on television on Wednesday. While it was obviously heartwarming to see people celebrating the fall of the regime, one should bear in mind that those pictures are only showing a certain angle on the story (as the photo showed). I'm not suggesting that the scenes were staged; rather that they only (and can only) show one side of the story. There's currently very little opportunity to know how the "ordinary" Iraqi feels about the war and I think it's going to be some time to come before we can get an overall, independent view of the situation.

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Originally posted by Frank:
...the only people who ever believed that the US wouldn't win and that we wouldn't see scenes like that were the Iraqi information minister and Rick.

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Unfair. It was obvious the US was going to win - it had billions of dollars of military hardware pitted against rusting equipment that hadn't been serviced for over a decade. What I did think was that there would be more of a fight, particularly in Baghdad.

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Originally posted by Frank:
However, now that the Ba'athist authority has collapsed in Baghdad, it is the responsiblity of the occupying power to make sure that order is upheld and, most importantly, to ensure that the sick and injured are protected. As it is, hospitals have been looted and ransacked while the US failed to intervene.

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I agree completely with the need to restore order - but you must appreciate that there's a need to complete military operations before the troops can turn their attention fully to policing operations, which require a wholly different approach (exemplified by the adoption of berets by British troops in Umm Qusar). Policing requires a high degree of contact between the policing force and the population - for US troops to attempt this while they're still on a full "war footing" would lead to confrontations resulting inevitably in tragedy. It's an urgent task, but it needs to be undertaken properly when the time comes that the troops can undertake it - and, more importantly, when they can organise Iraqis to undertake it.... which as anyone would allow will take time.

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Originally posted by Frank:
I don't think it's good enough to answer these kind of questions by simply saying "I suppose you'd prefer it if Saddam was in power".

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Certainly not, but Dixie was painting an incredibly one-sided picture that allowed no possibility for the US troops to have been anything other than "brutal" inavaders and the Iraqis "brave" defenders of their soil - a picture that seemed entirely drained of the presence of one S Hussain.

For the past few months people supporting military action have been reviled as warmongers, accomplices to murder, puppets of Bush, poodles etc etc - when the much-chanted predictions of the anti-war movement failed to come to pass (carpet bombing, half a million dead etc) it does kind of beg the question about how much else was simply empty sloganeering.

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Originally posted by Frank:
The US has some very serious questions to answer about its conduct of this war (even leaving aside questions about the legitimacy of the war in the first place). I hope it's going to face up to its responsiblities, but considering the contempt it's shown for international law to date there's not an awful lot of reason to be.

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While appalling mistakes have been made in individual cases, surely you must acknowledge that US and British forces have gone out of their way to try to avoid killing civilians while fighting an opponent that went out of its way to put such innocents in the line of fire.

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Originally posted by Frank:
Finally, although it's been gone over already, I think the picture that Dixie initially posted does raise an important point. It's important not to draw too many conclusions from the scenes that were shown on television on Wednesday. While it was obviously heartwarming to see people celebrating the fall of the regime, one should bear in mind that those pictures are only showing a certain angle on the story (as the photo showed). I'm not suggesting that the scenes were staged; rather that they only (and can only) show one side of the story. There's currently very little opportunity to know how the "ordinary" Iraqi feels about the war and I think it's going to be some time to come before we can get an overall, independent view of the situation..

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This was why I pasted the links to articles by Suzanne Goldenberg and Robert Fisk, which do provide the "other side of the story" but also which acknowledge the colossal relief of Iraqis to be rid of Saddam. Naturally, these links have been ignored!!

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Originally posted by Frank:
It's also a nonsense to suggest that the scenes somehow prove that the anti-war camp has been somehow proven wrong, as the unpopularity of the Ba'ath regime was never in question and the only people who ever believed that the US wouldn't win and that we wouldn't see scenes like that were the Iraqi information minister and Rick.

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Of course - but you may recall that only a week or so after the action began many in the anti-war camp were making gruesome noises about how it would all end in a quagmire, a Stalingrad and how the "scenes of jubilation" would never take place.

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rather than wait for the Soviet Union to crumble, we should simply have tried to attack the Warsaw Pact and imposed democracy on it.

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I have come to fucking hate these smug sanctimonious myopic intellectually bankrupt anti humanitarian career oppositionist moral cowards. Go hide behind cruel absolutes and solipsism, because ideology is all, right? My, the stink of self-satisfaction oozing out of your ethically sound pores makes me vomit.

You satisfied with the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis tortured, raped and murdered already? You satisfied with the thousands more that would have been over the next twelve or twenty five years had we not gone to war? And YES our governments did support this awful regime in the 80s. We liked Phil Collins back then too! Are we slaves to the past? Why don't you show us the intelligence and of your position with non-dogmatic argument? Rather than crying out oil or Israel or fucking looters, how oh my we are rocking the boat, how awful, why not suggest positives in the here and now? Go drown in your 'leftist' redundancy. It is because of my internationalist, social democratic, liberal beliefs that I support this war. It is because I believe in human rights and equality and justice that I am proud of what the US and UK is doing. All that matters is the the end result, the liberation of a people. So what the fuck is your excuse?

These knee jerk anti-Americans oppose everything the USA does for the very fact that it is the USA. That nation of fat gas guzzlers could decide to give 10% of its GDP to Africa tomorrow (if only..) and these morons would be out picketing US embassies across the world like it's 1968. Everything the USA does must be wrong and be condemned and protested, no matter what, never mind the poor people you claim to represent. You’re so hung up on past failings and horrors of US policy that you refuse to even see, much less support, action that benefits the people you fake compassion for. You're under the delusion that if Yankee hadn't gone in everything would be just fine and dandy in the land of Saddam. Because there aren't camera crews reporting out of Baathist torture centres, because you can not see (or imagine) the atrocities of the regime, the horrors must not exist. How could they, right? Your 'morality' operates in a vacuum and is the more stupid and callous for it.

We actually care about and want the best for humanity. The sanctity of personal philosophy means shit when an entire nation is being brutalised. I may not like the USA too much, I may find their action in Iraq hypocritical in the extreme, but that does not change that 20 million ordinary Iraqis will be infinitely better off despite all your effort to condemn them to decades more of torture, mutilation, rape and murder. Real liberals sacrifice their beliefs for people, you sacrifice people for your beliefs. You will not let what is the actual situation at the level of people, the complexity of this world and its lack of absolutes in the shades of grey in which everyone must operate, you will not let this muddy the purity of your sacred 'ideals'.

However much I may dislike the unelected neo-conservative hawks in DC, and whatever their motives for going to war are, at least they are doing something, something that will make the lives of Iraqis better. You just sit on your asses and complain and clutch at straws, your corpses twitching, you me sick. Or you, millions of you, go and march and chant and shout catchy slogans that betray the brutalised. How compassionate you truly are! You do not care about Iraqi people, not anymore. You only care about yourselves.

I base my judgement of what your opinions are worth on the facile statement you recently made, completely unsupported by any evidence, where you crowed about how amazingly life has improved for the population of the world in recent years.

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Originally posted by vikram:
These knee jerk anti-Americans oppose everything the USA does for the very fact that it is the USA.

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How telling. How sickening.

I am not condemning all the anti-war movement, obviously. I share many of the concerns regarding US hegemony, the future of the UN and global convention and governance, and the potentially increased danger of global terrorism, amongst other things. In my own little cost-benefit risk assessment, I came out in favour of the war, but we'll see. I just can't stand certain major elements of the anti-war movement, namely the three wise monkeys of sinister Orientalists, clinical Westphalians, and the unthinking slaves to anti-Americanism.

Revealing quotes from Dixie:

Hysterical:

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:
We are entering a new dark age, led by our American Caesar Bush and his despicable lapdog Blair.

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the U.S.S. Vincennes shot an Iranian Airbus down from a commercial air corridor, another unfortunate incident in the fog of war which had absolutely nothing to do with testing the brand new Aegis weapon system. Oh no.

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America has succeeded in slaughtering the unquestionably brave but hopelessly outgunned Iraquis, bludgeoned their way into Bahgdad and toppled statues to Saddam.

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The U.S. may be nominally a democracy but support for war, ANY war against weak Third World opponents propagandised into demons, is very high and growing. Be afraid.

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So which one are you? An apologist, admirer or patsy of the Ba'ath Party?

The Left needs to be reclaimed from this deplorable cult of 'peace at any cost'. The Left needs to be reclaimed from people like Dixie.

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:
I base my judgement of what your opinions are worth on the facile statement you recently made, completely unsupported by any evidence, where you crowed about how amazingly life has improved for the population of the world in recent years.

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It is not worth bothering with you of course. I'd rather argue Zionism with Rick or Britney v Christina. Or rip out my nails. Still, what I actually said was:

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Originally posted by me:
The world now is better than ever. No Mao, no Stalin, no Hitler. Most of the old totalitarian regimes have gone or are reforming. The Cold War is over. Freedom and prosperity and the quality of life is on the up mostly. Okay not for everyone, and Africa is as fucked as ever, but certainly a bigger slice of the population are better off.

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Hardly 'crowing', is it? So consumed with hatred for America you completely ignore that my rather flippant comment was about the world generally, not any one nation. Instead you decide to sermonise on the ills of the USA:

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:
Just to remind you, the U.S. refuses to sign the Kyoto Protocol or the convention on the Rights of the Child, is removing the civil rights of its own citizens, does not believe in guaranteed health care, social security, or trade unions, is increasing military spending, has threatened the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear opponents, is cutting taxes to redistribute wealth to the rich, has an enormous and growing prison population and believes in addressing both social and diplomatic problems with the use of force.

Freedom, prosperity and quality of life are NOT on the up for most ordinary people, even in the U.S. itself relative living standards for most people were higher in the 70's. Unemployment continues to grow, pension plans (401k's) have been decimated by the bursting of the stocks bubble, 40 million Americans have no health insurance. In some cases Americans with serious illnesses like cancer must continue to work to pay for medical treatment.

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All true no doubt. Regardless your evidence applies only to a proportion of one country's population, and is not necessarily an indicator of the global situation. Are you even capable of comprehending the world without the anti-US red mist burning your tunnel vision?

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Originally posted by The Dixie Flatline:
When evidence to the contrary was presented you claimed that when you said 'the world' you didn't mean to include the U.S.A. or any country in Africa.

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Again, what I said was:

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Originally posted by me:
Er, I was talking about the world see, not just the USA. And I know income inequality etc has increased, but are you seriously claiming the people of this planet are worse off now than they were 10 years ago? Really?
Generally people the world over are wealthier and certainly freer. That's all I was talking about. We imagine there was some golden era of our existence on this planet and that's bollocks. The world now, although still not such a great place to be for billions, is better now than it has ever been.

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According to the United Nations Human Development Report 2002:

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Originally posted by vikram:
Oooh, I flew off the handle a bit there. Am I a bad person? Dixie's posts don't help. You and your ilk can't - won't - see the wood for the trees. A few days of disorder is worse than another decade or three of mass torture and killing? Israel's policies towards the Palestinians somehow negate the infinitely worse Ba'athist bloodbath for you, does it?

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No-one gave a stuff, particularly, about Saddam's despicable regime until other justifications for war began to look rather thin on the ground. The vaunted "moral crusade against iniquity" argument for this conflict is nothing more than cynical posturing. It is especially sickening given the efforts of organisations like Amnesty International, Oxfam, and the Red Cross to rouse Western governments from their apathy for years, with regard to the human rights abuses and terrible poverty in Iraq. This is no humanitarian crusade. Please stop pretending that it is.

Like other people who remain strongly opposed to this war, I look at the situation in Iraq now and know that all I can do is hope, fervently, that some good will come of it. I'm glad that Saddam's influence seems to have come to an end; I'm glad, too, that new possibilities for the future of Iraq's people have presented themselves, but what you flippantly describe as "a few days of disorder" is shaping up to be a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions. The coalition has been forced to ask the help of many of the main players in Saddam's regime to try to regain some sort of order: hospitals are being looted, essential food and medical supplies are not reaching their targets and people are dying. This is the reality of what happens when you steam into a country and destroy what little infrastructure was keeping it limping along.

Why is it that no-one can point this out without being branded as anti-american and an apologist for Saddam? You seem to think that drawing such crass (and offensive) conclusions helps your argument. You're wrong. Everyone wanted Saddam's dictatorship to end; but not at any cost.

Reports from Iraq show that the so-talked-about-it-has-lost-all-meaning "hearts and minds" approach is a long, long way from being anything near a success. As you say, it's a question of perspective. A statue of Saddam toppling awkwardly to the ground might seem an epoch-defining symbol that makes an excellent front page spread. The real and continuing crisis behind the gritty reportage and the handy soundbites will have a complex and lengthy legacy. You might not want to think about that, but the Iraqi people have no choice.

Edit: me no spel gud.

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Originally posted by Astromariner:
...This is no humanitarian crusade. Please stop pretending that it is.

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I agree that the neo-cons in DC do not care about the humanitarian aspect beyond making themselves look good. I never thought they did. Regardless of their motives, the end result is the removal of a particularly brutal dictator at a minimal loss of civilian life and a far better future for the people of Iraq. That the neo-cons are cynically trumpeting the humanitarian card does not change that in the mid- and long-term the situation for the average Iraqi is infinitely better.

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what you flippantly describe as "a few days of disorder" is shaping up to be a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.

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We'll see, although I find this very unlikely. It would be very bad PR for the US-UK.

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Everyone wanted Saddam's dictatorship to end; but not at any cost.

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This was the only way to remove the evil ravaging Iraqi society. Sanctions and isolation had little effect. There was no real organized opposition within ultra-totalitarian Iraq to arm (which would most likely lead to greater loss of life anyway). Conventional assassination was extremely unlikely to work out.

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Originally posted by vikram:

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what you flippantly describe as "a few days of disorder" is shaping up to be a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.
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We'll see, although I find this very unlikely. It would be very bad PR for the US-UK.

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Two points:

1) What leads you to the conclusion that a humanitarian crisis is "unlikely"? On what facts do you base this prediction? In any case, I think the aid agencies who are giving increasingly alarmed reports from Iraq would disagree. It's not a hypothesis for discussion: it is a reality which must be faced. The only variable is the scale of the disaster, which depends on how quickly some semblance of order can be imposed.

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Originally posted by Astromariner:
When the massive human cost of this war becomes apparent, I really hope that the PR implications for the coalition governments will not be your main concern. Perhaps unintentionally, that's the way you've presented your thinking.

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NO. I have presented the way the Coalition may be thinking. It doesn't really matter to me if they care about the people or the press more as long as it leads to them keeping the humanitarian situation in check. It's not how I think, but I support the war because my objectives, what I want for Iraq, coincide with the outcomes of this war if not the reasons it was undertaken. And as long as the end result is realised with a minimal loss of life it is worth it. The ONLY alternative was leaving Saddam in power to continue terrorising his people. Is this what you prefer? These were the only realistic options - armed conflict or the status quo. I chose war.

[edited: an apology (pah!) to Dixie, cos it was for show and I didn't mean it and I don't say sorry]

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Originally posted by vikram:
bilious curmudgeon.

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Tag material, shirley.

I've said all I need to say on what is happening in the Gulf, more or less. I just hope that the Americans mean what they say and actually set about creating a stable platform in Iraq. The country is now an open wound, and great care will need to be taken to prevent further infection. Saddam, through a mixture of fear and repression (useful tools, in some cases - we can't dispute that) kept the lid tightly sealed on what can only be described as a tribal Pandora's box. Sunnis. Shi'ites. Kurds. And God knows what else. All of them want their piece of the prize, and someone will have to make sure that things don't get out of hand.

One thing that cannot help matters is Bush and his cronies turning on Syria while Iraq is still smouldering. And trying to pass off the same bullshit lie about Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Vikram - you might have had a point about the removal of Saddam's regime being a good thing. Even if the pretext for launching the attack to facilitate said removal was based on a bare-faced lie. But Syria? A country which has actually progressed in its relations with the West since the death of the "infamous" Hafeez Assad?

He was too beautiful for this world

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Originally posted by Astromariner:
I know he was a patsy for an evil regime

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