So….why are you making such a big deal about 1441 then?

Sorry we don’t come up to your argumentative standards, but if you’ve really given up all hope of either enlightening us or learning anything from us—and I hope you haven’t—then perhaps, for your own peace of mind, you should simply shake us off like the dust from your shoes.

Including Brownie. You’ll be unable to find a single line of commentary from me in this thread or anywhere else on the world wide web that supports your assertion that I believe 1441 “licensed” war. I know you’re not the sharpest tool in the box, Hidari, but this just smacks of your not being arsed to actually read what I’ve written. You’ve skimmed my comments and seen the words “Iraq”, “1441” and “war” and just made up the rest. This is why most people ignore you.

Iraq simply found it very difficult to comply.

I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, please stop.

And let’s not even mention Israel.

Except you always do. You and abb1 see dem Jooos everywheres.

As for the meaning of “spurning” and “compliance”: To pretend to comply, as Saddam did, is not to “reject with disdain and contempt.” And of course one can comply “a bit”; or, for that matter, a quarter or a half or two-thirds or three-quarters. What can you mean by denying this? I fear you’re playing the “word games” you deplored earlier.[geo]

You write something like “to pretend to comply, as Saddam did, is not to “reject with disdain and contempt”” and then suggest I’m playing word games?

It’s simple. The inspectors ask to visit place X and you take them to place X. They ask to see document Y and you show them document Y. They demand to speak with person Z and you ensure they are given access to Z. Even Hidari could get this right after 12 years. If Saddam was “pretending to comply” then he was failing even at this. Who did he fool with his pretending, exactly? Other than you, of course?

This thread should be preserved in aspic so future historians can have a good giggle. After 12 years of deliberate obstruction, Iraq’s refusal to allow inspectors to see what they wanted to see and interview whomever they wanted to interview can’t possibly be described as “spurning” the “final opportunity” she was offered, no doubt because, as Hidari has noted, it was “very difficult” for Iraq to comply…..

You can’t write this stuff, yet every time I pop over here I see that someone has.

But for now, since the subject of Iraq has been overtly taken up and the subject of self-blindered ideologues has more tacitly been evidenced, Iraq, in City Journal, by way of a couple of gentlemen with handsome names and, more importantly, are reporting from within the theater in question, providing empirical and timely support to their arguments.

You already have, you simply haven’t admitted as much to yourselves, which fact, in addition to furnishing a few eye-raising lols, speaks volumes. It’s known as saving the appearances.

Here’s a thought: very simply, do it.

Again, that advice. Heed it.

Steyn’s oeuvre is readily available in the public domain and people are free to draw their own conclusions. What is your beef, exactly?