That’s being a rather presumptuous ass. My attitudes never softened. As far as I was concerned he was public enemy number one when he satrted using chemical weapons in the Iran-Iraq War. Don’t put words in my mouth. I was doing work about Iraq’s brutality in 1983 in my Amnesty International group. What the fuck were you doing?

However, if you cannot see the value of not consorting with dictators regardless of whether they serve short term interests then you will have a long history of Saddams. The US is busy embracing Aliyev in Azerbaijan and cozying up to unpleasant characters in Turkmenistan for short term needs.

The only basis you have for arguing that Saddam would have, finally, complied fully and unconditionally with UN inspections, is a tendency towards wishful thinking, at least where Iraq is concerned.

Bullshit. Inspections were taking place. What determined the pace of the rush to war was not the pace of inspections.

But if you’re satisfied with the fact that the war is taking place built on false pretenses, so be it. It’s not your ass dodging IED’s and bullets in the desert, is it?

First of all and taking you at your word, which I’m happy to do, you obviously do have some understanding of what life under tyranny must be like. I still insist that my wish to see other peoples availing themselves of rights I enjoy is grounded in the spirit of traditional internationalism and nothing to do with Wilson’s or anybody else’s wet dreams, but I was presumptuous to say what I did and apologise.

Then don’t object when those of us who feel we were sold a bill of goods find it objectionable.

Then find it objectionable. I’m talking about the basis of your opposition, not whether you’re entitled to feel angry with the Whitehouse. I know a handful of people who supported the war exclusively for WMD reasons and later changed their minds, but I don’t know anyone who opposed the war who would, in all conscience, have switched to support for the war had anything turned up in Iraq. Are you claiming you would have? If not, then the existence or not of WMDs has no bearing on your opinion of the war whether you’re prepared to admit that or not. I’m guessing you and I would still be arguing about the war had that VX nerve agent (which is still missing, albeit by now degraded) ever turned up.

What I object to is the basis of your analogy. You seem to assume that ABB1 and the rest of us would have done nothing on Rwanda.

With respect, randy, there’s still an information deficit as regards what you would have done. As I implied earlier, I’d have been in balls out support of a military intervention to prevent mass-murder, preferably with a UN resolution but, let’s face it, more likely without. What’s your master-plan?

The fact is that the time to act on Saddam would have been when the US was chummy with him, not years after he had done his worst damage.

I think you’ve let the cat out of the bag. Your issues with Saddam seems to correlate directly with the US’s disposition towards Baghdad. You wanted something done about him when he was shaking hands with Rumsfeld, but once he became public enemy number 1, your attitude towards him softened. Curious.

Your limited cognitive abilities seem not to realize that there is an actual humanitarian catastrophe going on in Darfur and resources beuing used in Iraq could have stopped the genocide in Darfur while it was happening.

Well, all I can say is you are not familiar with my posts on Harry’s Place if this is what you think, but suffice it to say I reject emphatically the notion that nothing can be done about Darfur because of Iraq. You can only think this if you believe the responsibility to do something about Darfur lies with the US and only the US. I’m sure I don’t need to list other countries, including NATO member states, who could, if they wanted, lead the way on Darfur. They don’t have troops tied up in Iraq and those they have in Afghanistan aren’t doing any fighting. Is there nothing for which the US won’t be blamed? It seems nobody wants the US to act like the world’s policeman except when they want her to act like the world’s policeman.

And as with Rwanda, I’d sure like to know what you have in mind when you talk about preventing what has happened and is still happening in Darfur? Assuming the response is military in nature, I’d like to know more about your criteria for humanitarian intervention: as in, what is it about west coast Africans that means they deserve our support more than, say, Iraqi Kurds, or Marsh Arabs?

Continued inspections would have resolved the WMD question and some 2,900 Americans would still be alive as would tens of thousands of Iraqis. Why should you give a rat’s ass? After all, you’re not American.

Firstly, you’re guessing. Neither of us can say for certain whether inspections would have been allowed to run their course. All we have to go on is experience. My experience is that Saddam only agreed to inspections again when half of the US fleet turned up in the Gulf in the autumn of 2002; that he had defied the will of the UN for over 12 years; that he had ignored 17 UN resolutions, a couple of which codified the terms of the Gulf I ceasefire and made inspections a prerequisite of those ceasefire terms; that as late as March 2003, Blix was forced to report “progress on process, but not on substance” (remember that?); that until the eve of war, Saddam was trying to attach conditions to unfettered inspections.

The only basis you have for arguing that Saddam would have, finally, complied fully and unconditionally with UN inspections, is a tendency towards wishful thinking, at least where Iraq is concerned. Even after resolution 1441 – which afforded Saddam a “final opportunity” and threatened “serious consequences”, he continued to obfuscate, prevaricate and obstruct.

Blair told the House of Commons that Blix could have 6 months, a year, 10 years to complete the task of ensuring Iraq was free from WMD, if that’s as long as it took. This was never a question of time for inspections. The point is that no amount of time could force Saddam to comply if he didn’t want to. And he didn’t want to.

We now know, rather than have to guess, that Iraq has no WMD. We know this, rather have to cross-fingers that it is true, because there was a war and looked for ourselves after years of asking nicely got us nowhere.

Missed this asinine comment. Continued inspections would have revealed this as well. Keep ignoring the facts, it just makes you look even more intellectually dishonest.

Now you think you’re clairvoyant? Continued inspections would have resolved the WMD question and some 2,900 Americans would still be alive as would tens of thousands of Iraqis. Why should you give a rat’s ass? After all, you’re not American.

And it would have been accomplished with continued inspections.

Spoken like a man who’s never lived under a jackboot.

My father escaped from the USSr in 1921. My wife lived under a military dictatorship. You’re an ass.

Firstly, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what your govt. told you….I’m not American. Secondly – and this is something you antis have a real problem getting your heads around – I did and do support the war for my own reasons, reasons that I variously do and do not share with those given by Blair and Bush.

Then don’t object when those of us who feel we were sold a bill of goods find it objectionable.

That’s great. All that’s missing is what you would have done. Let me know when you’ve thought of something.

What I object to is the basis of your analogy. You seem to assume that ABB1 and the rest of us would have done nothing on Rwanda. Utter bullshit. The fact is that the time to act on Saddam would have been when the US was chummy with him, not years after he had done his worst damage.

Your limited cognitive abilities seem not to realize that there is an actual humanitarian catastrophe going on in Darfur and resources beuing used in Iraq could have stopped the genocide in Darfur while it was happening. Instead, resources that should have gone to Afghanistan to stabilize it (it’s also deteriorating in case you didn’t know) and could have been used to stop the genocide in Darfur went to Iraq.

So, using your same illogic, you would probably propose doing something about Darfur – in 2016.

I know. That Reagan fella, eh? What’s your point? He was western-friendly once upon a time therefore we should have continued to cosy up to him? For consistency sake? I don’t get it, Randy. Stalin was our ally in the mid-40s, did that compel us to support him when he murdered tens of millions of his own people?

You or may or may not be interested to know that the top three suppliers of arms to Iraq until the 1991 global embargo were: China, Russia and France. Brazil sold more arms to Saddam that Reagan, Carter, Ford and Nixon. Just for the record, like.

BTW, the Uranium from Africa story is still out there. Brit intel for this claim never depended on the Italian connection that underpinned the US claim. The UK, unlike the US, continues to claim that Iraq was indeed trying to source uranium from Niger. But this isn’t really the point. The truth is that the vast majority of people who opposed intervention in Iraq did so before the WMD question was resolved one way or the other. It’s not as if you or anybody else would have changed your mind if we’d found a warehouse full of VX nerve agent.

My position has always been that the it doesn’t matter whether we found 100 ICBMs or a ton of camel shit….the point was the we had to know the truth and were justified trying to discover it. We were entitled to suppose that 12 years of obstruction and obfuscation had been designed to conceal something. The fact that Saddam was either bluffing or didn’t himself know the truth of what Iraq had registers as a big fat ‘so what’. Do you not feel just a tad hypocritical using the now established fact that Iraq’s WMD capability didn’t amount to a hill of beans to attack the justification for war, when the only reason you know this fact is because there was a, er, war? Absent the war, you are bereft of the intelligence that you use as the cornerstone of your opposition.

Meanwhile 3,700 Iraqi civilians were killed in October. Somehow I don’t think they care much about your Wilsonian wet dreams.

If you insist on claiming the support of the dead for your cause, then I must insist that the more than 8 million Iraqis who voted in their first democratic elections stand with me. I’ll also ask you to review the polling data of Iraqis who, whatever they say about the US, Blair and coalition troops, still regard the war as having been worth it.

“Wilsonian wet dreams”, eh? Spoken like a man who’s never lived under a jackboot.

That’s great. All that’s missing is what you would have done. Let me know when you’ve thought of something.

Btw, given it was at least 800,000 Tutsis murdered in 100 days of fighting, my invasion would have to be pretty catastrophic for you to justifiably claim it was a worse option than standing on the sidelines with your thumb up your arse.

Apparently, you ignore the reasons given the American public for the invasion.

Firstly, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what your govt. told you….I’m not American. Secondly – and this is something you antis have a real problem getting your heads around – I did and do support the war for my own reasons, reasons that I variously do and do not share with those given by Blair and Bush. For example, I do not have to be convicned that Bush really, really cares about Marsh Arabs and Kurds before supporting a course of action to remove the megalomaniac who has oppressed them for decades.

Come on randy, think about it. Something can be right even though Bush says it’s right.

I can’t speak for ABB1, but I can tell you this re Rwanda:

I wouldn’t have waited until 2004 to do something about the genocide, nor would I have invaded Rwanda and created an environment where tens of thousands of other civilians were killed , then told them they were being liberated.

Apparently, you ignore the reasons given the American public for the invasion.

What a piece of work you are.

Then I guess they never felt strongly enough.

No doubt you regard a Rwanda circa 1994 as an internal dispute and wouldn’t have supported any outside intervention that necessarily compromised sovereignty.

What piece of work you are.

They certainly didn’t vote for you to represent them.

Moreover, same as today, under the previous government everyone there had an AK47 under the bed, so they certainly could’ve taken care of all their governing problems had they felt strongly enough. They’re doing it now, aren’t they.

I’ll type this slowly so that you and Brett can understand. The worst of what Saddam – with the sole exception of the post Gulf War I crackdown took place while the US was supporting him.

In the run up to the war, what was hammered into our heads was:

“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .”

“The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

“Our intelligence sources tell us that he [Saddam] has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.”

“We know that Iraq has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure within its legitimate civilian industry.”

“Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical-weapons agent.”

All of which has turned out to be poppycock. You can continue to put lipstick on this pig, but it remains a pig. Meanwhile 3,700 Iraqi civilians were killed in October. Somehow I don’t think they care much about your Wilsonian wet dreams.

So kinda like, if we hadn’t declared war on Hitler, there wouldn’t have been a London Blitz, ergo, Chamberlain is, “to a greater and lesser extent”, responsible for the 1940-41 carnage in the East End?

Got it.

The attacks on Fallujah, particularly the first big one, were crimes – the entire city was subject to collective punishment, with large numbers of civilian casualties.

You mean there were crimes committed during both battles, or that the mere fact of fighting them was criminal? There are rough estimates for numbers of Iraqi civilians killed in both phases, but no authoritative distinction between combatant and non-combatant has ever been made, so you’re basically just regurgitating non-facts, although I’m sure you don’t need to be told that “large numbers of civilian casualties” does not necessarily a war crime make.

I do know that, in the 2nd battle especially, US Marines fought house-to-house, clearing building after building with shoulder arms and not much more. And this after the civilian population had been wanred of what was coming and given opportunities to leave the city….opportunities denied to them, in some instances, by the brave “resistance”.

The Iraqi nation has sovereignty, Brett. How they use or misuse it is their business.

Oh that’s nice. So a Final Solution applied to German Jews only would have gotten Hitler off the hook? National sovereignty, and all that?

Brett, give it up pal. You’re talking to peole who would have looked at what was happening in Spain in 1936 and called it an “internal dispute”. No doubt they regard the International Brigades as imperialist war-mongers. They’re a bunch of Westphalian fetishists who make Nixon look like an internationalist.

I think I need a shower.

If you believe that Bush ever gave the proverbial rat’s ass about the Iraqi people and their sovereignty, it is not borne out by the history and the facts on the ground. Read something other than the RNC talking points.

No, the Iraqi people have sovereignty; What did their former government ever do to gain a legitimate claim to exercise that sovereignty on the Iraqi peoples’ behalf? Besides killing anyone who suggested they didn’t have such a claim?

If that’s a legitimate basis for state sovereignty according to liberals, so much the worse for liberalism.