re: big fear - churchill the eloquent coward
It does seem as time passes that the US and Great Britain have all along intended to deal with Saddam and Iraq and from their perspective it would have been nice to have had the UN on board if at all possible. Nice but quite un-nececessary in terms of military capability
That possibility depended upon finding WMD. There seems little doubt that they exist but are probably so well hidden that it may take years to detect them. One could be pretty sure the allies have been aware of that difficulty all along.
It seems that that issue is really irrelevant in terms of the US/GB objectives. viz. removal of the present regime in Iraq.
It was convient for those opposed to a war to say show us evidence of these WMD. That meant no further thought or analysis was required by them.
As it is unlikely the US and GB alliance will be thwarted from going to war the argument should shift to minimisation of harm for the Iraqi's both military and civilian.
As an aside much is made of France's and Germany's anti war stance as though that is a virtue.
Just as individuals have particular character defects so do nations. You need go no further back in the history of both these nations than the 1930's onwards.
Germany was unable to deal with the rise of fascism and Hitler's regime. We could say, well it was not something in the German National psyche that allowed this barbarous and evil philosophy and Regime to spawn and prosper; no it was the pervasiveness of right wing influences that allowed this to happen.
The point is the German Nation overwhelmingly resonated with the Nazification of the"fatherland". Yet it was primarily Britain and the US that took a stand,not only against the Regime, but also against it's philosophy.
Now in Iraq we have a very evil regime, certainly guilty of the kind of genocide the Nazi's practised and a barbarically cruel Saddam, and still the "noble" Germans say,"Show us the WMD" and we may give you the OK.
Well was it the pervasiveness of of the Nazi philosophy that made the Germans a Nation of moral cowards or not? What is the flavour of the present moral cowards governing Germany? Is it not a party of the Left?
I leave you to form your own judgement about the National psyche and fascination with evil dictators.
They claim there is a better way than war. The Nation, through it's leaders didn't do much good in reasoning with Hitler and they haven't done it in ten years with Saddam. These guys are fair dinkum aren't they!
As far as the French go there was a large element that supported the Nazis eg, The Vichy government and Henri Petain.
The point I am making is that neither of these Nations have a recent history in opposing evil reimes but have rather been collaborators. I see more hope for our world from some of the emerging Eastern Eorprean nations.
Rumsfeld got it in one when he said France and Germany belong to old Europe. (circa 1930-1945)
