Tim Blair

But accountability! BUSHLIED! WHAAAAAAAAH! It's morally superior for me to spit on these people and their pathetic desire for freedom because BUSHLIED. Joe Wilson said so.

What a wonderful mistake indeed...

The Iraqi people are better off for it...

Slightly off topic fellas, but related to Iraq. Read some of Kim Beazley's comments last night on ABC's Compass program, seemingly recorded before Kim Beazley's elevation to the frontbench. It's principally about intervention in PNG, but insert Iraq instead of PNG into these transcripts, and suddenly Kim's view looks very contradictory to some of his more recent statements about pre-emption and Labor policy.

Just my take on it, decide for yourself...

http://www.abc.net.au/compass/s1156776.htm

Kim Beazley:
In many ways yes. Now we have a multi-layered problem here. We’ve got a struggle globally with what is fundamentalist Islamic terrorism, a struggle not only on our own behalf but also with Muslim friends who are the principle targets of that. That's at one level. Then at the other level you have major challenges in our immediate region, and the two may intersect. The two may intersect.
It’s not the reason we should be concerned. If you’ve got a failing state you should be concerned in the first instance because of the human dimension. But the reality is if you don’t care, some time or other you’re going to be made to care when that failing state intersects with another agenda that more directly threatens you.

...

Kim Beazley:
I think there’s a couple of things we’ve got to work our way through here, and get a paradigm for what is relevant national action and relevant community action.
Sometimes force is necessary, sometimes you will be confronted with the situation where you have to defend yourselves, or where somebody is acting with such extraordinary cruelty that there needs to be an abrupt intervention -

Geraldine Doogue:
A la Kosovo.

Kim Beazley:
-- to prevent that cruelty spinning out in a way that destroys whole populations. But it’s not a solution. All that intervention is, is a pause. You’ve pressed the “pause” button when that group goes in. Then what do you do?
Now we are discovering that I think now in Iraq - which is an intervention by the way I didn’t agree with – we’ve discovered it big time in Afghanistan, which is an intervention I did agree with -- and we’re making an awful mull of it.
I’m not sure we’ve done all the things we could have in Timor. And by gee’s we’d better get Papua New Guinea right.

...

Geraldine Doogue:
But like for instance with PNG Papua New Guinea now, there’s a debate in Papua New Guinea about this, about us going in to rebuild a lot of the institutions. I mean, Kim Beazley, do we start rethinking issues of national sovereignty?

Kim Beazley:
Look, I don’t think there’s a paradigm that we can apply. You know sometimes it’s right to be concerned about the sovereignty issue, sometimes it’s not. Sometimes it’s right to intervene with a certain level of force, sometimes it’s not. One thing you do know is that at the end of the day the people who are going to solve the problems have to be the people there themselves, that you can’t in the end, whatever help you can give them up front, you can’t in the end take over their own process of reconciliation or their own process of administration, and the trick is knowing how to tease those issues out.

Sorry about the long post. It looks skinnier in Word.

Oh yeah, Iraq really has become "free" and "democratic" since Saddam was toppled.

It's not like the US would replace one brutal dictator with another, now, is it? :rolleyes:

Jeremy

There's only one thing you have to ask yourself each day:

Would I rather Saddam was still running Iraq?

If the answer is no, then you can sleep easy Jeremy.
If the answer is yes, you need help.

If the "peace" movement really did care about the ordinary Iraqi people they'd listen to what they have to say don't you think?

All wars are horrible, but there's no reason to view this one as being particularly immoral.

Jeremy, circa 1946

Oh yeah, Germany really has become "free" and "democratic" since Saddam was toppled.

It's not like the US would replace one brutal dictator with another, now, is it? :rolleyes:

Who's rolleyes?

Sorry, that should have all been in italics.

Damn you html tags!

:)

And I meant to replace "Saddam" with "Hitler".

I hate it when sarcasm backfires.

(Rolls eyes)

Now just SHUT UP you delerious Semites. Your words don't count, what do you know? Your'e just wogs after all. Bush is Hitler, Bush Lied, empty warhead in Whitehouse blah, blah, blah, rant, rave, spit and blather, rah, rah, rah... and on and on and on and on... Long live the Socialist Ideals of the glorious Bathist centralised State... oh oops! didn't mean to say that last bit.. ahem!

That was Bob Brown in full flight.

Yes those comments on the Iraqi blogsites are worth thier weight in gold, when all you get to and good therapy when all you get to hear are ad infinitum leftoid rants .
How quickly those cups can go from half emoty ti half full.

So good to have Beazley back.
He teases out his responses so all bases covered and who the f### knows what theH### he really believes.
Lets send in a high ranking delegation to make sure we fully understand the implications and aspirations of all dictators so we can better cater for and plan for the repercussions of the aforementioned plans and contingentcies so we can,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm boring myself .Kim I'm planning a dinner party ,please come when I want my guests to go home.

So good to have Beazley back.
He teases out his responses so all bases covered and who the f### knows what theH### he really believes.
Lets send in a high ranking delegation to make sure we fully understand the implications and aspirations of all dictators so we can better cater for and plan for the repercussions of the aforementioned plans and contingentcies so we can,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm boring myself .Kim I'm planning a dinner party ,please come when I want my guests to go home.

sorry for double posting .it gets stuck sometimes

Yes, Jeremy, you certainly know what's best for the little brown people of Iraq.

How fantastically patronizing you are. Do you even realize how much, how deeply, how painfully, you suck?

After watching friday night's Lateline and the debate over the findings of pre-war Intelligence on Iraq, I decided to have a good read of the security council resolutions, 678, 686 and 1441. Do a google search.

Unfortunately for the leftoid detractors I cannot find anywhere where it states that the NATO forces or the UN negotiated and end to the first Gulf War. I found where the UN said temporary halt to hostilities but not one mention of a permanent end. Although this little excerp is from resolution 686;
Bearing in mind the need to be assured of Iraq's peaceful intentions, and the objective in resolution 678 (1990) of restoring international peace and security in the region,
Underlining the importance of Iraq taking the necessary measures which would permit a definitive end to the hostilities,

Here's a little pearla from resolution 678;

Acting under Chapter VII of the Charter,
1. Demands that Iraq comply fully with resolution 660 (1990) and all subsequent relevant resolutions, and decides, while maintaining all its decisions, to allow Iraq one final opportunity, as a pause of goodwil, to do so;

Just how many one final opportunities do they get?

Resolution 1441, a good read, highlights just how much Iraq flaunted the UN resolutions or just plain ignored them. 1441 also mentions Iraq's WMD's and other illegal weapons that were still in place just weeks prior to the coalition resuming the offensive.

Have a read folks. G.Dubby, Tony Blair and John Howard never declared war on Iraq, it already happened in 1991, they just resumed the offensive under the rules set out in 678, 686 and 1441.

Ushie, didn't you hear that Allawi is an axe-wielding murderer? I mean, if two unnamed sources say it, it must be true! We owe Jeremy a smack upside the head. I mean apology.

And if two unnamed sources and Jeremy say it, it must be even more true!

If liberating Iraq was a mistake- then more mistakes please.

The purpose of invading Iraq was to relpace a terrorist-friendly dictatorship with a terrorist-unfriendly democracy. Weapons of mass destruction had nothing to do with it. The only reason the WMD issue was raised is because Tony Blair wanted UN approval before committing UK troops, and it was thought that the WMD argument would secure UN approval.

Without a desire for UN approval, or without any British participation in the war, the WMD issue would never have been raised, and the war would have gone ahead just the same. WMDs were therefore not the reason or justification for the war, so any mistakes about WMDs could not make the war itself a mistake.

OMG TIM STOP MAKING SENSE IT HURTS LEFTIES

Good point Tim Shell and true at that.

Unfortunately the leftoid tossers will hang on any little benign fact they can to denigrate the war and those in charge of it regardless as to what the alternative would have meant for the Iraqi people.

For any detractor to claim that we had no right to go back into Iraq would mean that they believe that Saddam should be reinstated and the Iraqi people should continue to suffer..

Like I said though Tim, you have a good point.

So what? Tell it to the thousands of Iraqis now "liberated" six feet under! Tell it to all those Iraqis that perished while your heroes sat around for decades propping up Saddam's filthy regime.

Oh, yes, better late than never. So what now? How many permanent military bases are being built in Iraq? Don't have the gall to feign this was all in the name of ridding the world of "the dictator".

Hey, everyone, Mirander cares about dead Iraqis! Too bad she doesn't care about live ones.

We've really got to appreciate how Miranda can simutaneously hold logically incompatable viewpoints. Anger is the only glue holding her scattered thoughts together.