-=Dark_Angel=-, P.I.10 Jan 2005

Do you think the War in Iraq is morally equivalent to torturing children? Of course Abu Ghraib was a monumental cock-up, but do you really think what went on there was in perfect harmony with our plan and general ethos for the war? Can't you think of any potential benefits arising from regime change in the Middle East? Do you not think that at some point, something had to happen in Iraq? In accepting the status quo you would have to be willing to accept a regime that employed torture as a matter of course, killed hundreds of thousands of its own people, continuously tried to obtain WMD right up to the bitter end, hoarded millions while its people lived in squalor, harboured known terrorists (like our friend Mr Zarqawi), and which probably would only ever end after putting up some sort of fight, either now, or later on, perhaps on its own terms rather than ours. So we accept the regime. And then what? We wait till Saddam dies, and Uday and Qusay take over? That's a pleasant prospect. If you're going to disagree with the War that's fine. But to do so simply because of a perverted prison scandal strikes me as simplistic. It's like that film Fahrenheit 9/11. An entire documentary about Iraq that completely ignored the moral arguments for regime change, as if we'd never found the mass graves or tortured kittens.