Voice from the Commonwealth Commentary, World Views and Occasional Rants from a small 'l' libertarian in Massachussetts
"If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." - Samuel Adams
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An excellent argument in the Times [UK] Online for the removal of Saddam.
The scale, and imminence, of the threat we face requires action of a kind it has become hard to contemplate. We have no alternative but to launch a pre-emptive war against Iraq to prevent Saddam completing his drive to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Massive military force must be deployed to remove Saddam’s regime. Such an action will inevitably lead to significant casualties, both Western and Iraqi. No reasonable, or moral, human being can regard such a course with equanimity. But reason, and morality, tell us that there is no alternative.
Because the costs inherent in such a course are great, and because it would mark a departure from the paths with which diplomatic elites are comfortable, powerful voices argue for other strategies. There is no doubting their sincerity, or seniority. But then those who practised appeasement in the 1930s and detente in the 1970s were honourable men. It was never their intention to give tyrannies time and space to extend the reach of their oppression. Although that was the inevitable consequence of their inaction.
So, today, those who argue that we should wait until it can be proven that Saddam actually possesses a nuclear capability are wrong. By then the costs of action would be hugely greater. And those who argue, like Jack Straw, that we should rely upon UN weapons inspectors to neutralise the threat are wrong. Saddam is a past master at frustrating the efforts of the best of them.
And what does it all come down to in the end?
Cynics might call it cowboy diplomacy, but putting its faith in freedom is how the West has always won.
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