Why It Was a Good Idea to Attack Iraq

Sometimes, just to test my point of view, I like to take the opposite side and defend it. For example, I think attacking Iraq was a huge mistake. So today I will make my best argument for the other side.

First, you have to separate the outcome, which is unknown, from the original decision to attack. Hypothetically, it could be a good decision to attack, based on what you knew at the time, but things could go wrong for unforeseen reasons. Likewise, it could have been a bad decision to attack, based on the evidence at the time, and somehow by luck, things might turn out well. So you have to look at the decision and the outcome separately.

For the outcome, I would argue no one can predict the fate of Iraq more than a few years out. For situations this complex, the unintended and unpredictable consequences generally dwarf the predictable parts.

Lots of people have died in Iraq, and will continue to die. We created a breeding ground for terrorists. We took our eye off of the ball in terms of catching Bin Laden when we had the chance. And it will cost a trillion dollars. The costs are immense.

On the plus side, Iraqi Kurdistan is doing well, and might become the sixth largest source of oil reserves. If they avoid war with Turkey, they could become a prosperous democracy regardless of what happens to the rest of Iraq.

Al-Qaida overplayed its hand in Iraq and proved it’s not a war between the Christian crusaders and Islam. Al-Qaida targeted Muslims and caused the U.S. and the locals to join forces against them. That could turn out to be a good thing in terms of the battle for the hearts and minds of Muslims.

Iraq is Al-Qaida’s flypaper. They entered Iraq in large numbers, discredited their own movement by killing Muslims, and are now getting killed themselves. They did what the United States couldn’t do on its own, in making the U.S. occupation seem beneficial to the security of the locals.

Violence in Iraq is trending down. No one thinks there is a smooth ride ahead, but it’s obvious to all parties that continued violence isn’t going to make life better for anyone. There’s no “winning” to be had. Now that the U.S. presence is improving security, and our forces are moving up the learning curve in figuring out how to be less hated and more useful, there’s a legitimate chance that things could keep trending well.

The cost of the war in Iraq is immense. But it has several potential benefits:

1. Al-Qaida showed itself to be everyone’s enemy.
2. Iraq has potential to be a U.S. ally, even if true democracy doesn’t take hold.
3. The U.S. sharpened its war-making tools and showed it is willing to use them.
4. Iraqi oil production will eventually increase, even if it takes 20 years.
5. The U.S. has a permanent military base in the Middle East.

On balance, are these benefits worth the costs? Probably not. But all of the unintended consequences haven’t played out. For example, in the long run, I’d expect events in Iraq to have a big impact on Iranian politics. Some of those changes could be good for U.S. interests.

What about the original decision to invade? If you believe the president KNEW Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, it was clearly a bad decision. I believe the president and his advisors believed we would find WMD. After all, Saddam had a history of seeking WMD, a motive for doing so, and he resisted inspections.

If there is a tiny chance your sworn enemy is building nuclear weapons, and you have a nearly 100% chance of stopping him, even at a very high cost, it seems sensible to do it. It would be rational self defense to risk losing thousands of U.S. troops to reduce the perceived risk of nuclear attack on the U.S. by 1%.

If you say you KNEW there were no WMD in Iraq, you’re either a liar or an idiot. It was unknowable. If you thought there was a 1% chance Saddam was building WMD that could get into terrorist hands, then the decision to attack Iraq was rational for American self defense, even if the outcome turns out bad.

From a moral perspective, the huge Iraqi losses have to be included in the calculation. Morally, you wouldn’t want to kill a thousand people in a different country to protect one person in your own. But from a national defense perspective, which is the responsibility of the president of the United States, he has to count American lives as more valuable than other lives. That might seem evil, but that’s the job we hired him for.

All things considered, the DECISION to attack Iraq was correct, given the perceived risk of Saddam developing WMD. Likewise, the decision NOT to attack North Korea is rational because doing so would increase the odds of a nuclear attack on the U.S. and its allies, not decrease it. They already have functional nukes and a much tougher army.

When a venture capitalist invests in a particular company, and it goes out of business, he doesn’t conclude that he made a bad decision to invest. He concludes that his strategy is good because he only needs one in ten companies to succeed.

Likewise, you can’t view the decision to attack Iraq in isolation. It is part of a larger hard-ass policy of attacking anyone who looks like they can be conquered at an acceptable cost and might pose catastrophic risks to our security. To pick an obvious example, if we attacked Iran, and discovered they ARE building a nuclear weapon and planning to use it, that would validate the strategy of attacking Iraq. One out of two ain’t bad.

In fact, if we attacked three or four countries looking for WMD, and found none, it still doesn’t invalidate the strategy. You only need to find one country that actually has them, and might use them, to make the entire strategy sensible. At the very least, all that attacking gives some teeth to the U.N. inspectors.

That’s my best argument for why attacking Iraq was both sensible at the time and might work out well in the long run.

I just wish I believed it.

Comments

[MisterGary]

I agree with the opinion that taking Sadam out was a good idea. I also agree that we are making things better for ourselves in the Middle East. Our military put Osama on the run! We are at least showing the world that we are not afraid to get involved to protect our own. We are, in a way, saying "Don't even think about it," to the terrorists of the world who think that they will win their religeous war in our own back yard.

Those who do not like the government that we have developed have two options: they could go through the channels of government to change the way the government runs (ie run for office), or they could move to a country that has a better government(in their opinion).

If your opinion is the only step you take to change what is wrong, you are at least experiencing the freedoms that our patriot sons are working hard to protect. In some other governments, you could lose your head for just thinking it.

[4%]

What is the official exchange rate of US persons to Iraqi. 500, 1000?

[BEN]

THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HAVE BEEN FIGHTING OFF LIES SINCE WE BECAME A COUNTRY OF LIERS. WHY CAN PEOPLE NOT SEE THAT NO MATER WHAT THE GOVERMENT WILL CONTINUE TO KEEP US IN THE DARK ON ANYTHING THAT MAY REALLY BE GOING ON OVERSEAS OR HERE AT OUR OWN HOME FRONT. I AM FOR AMERICA AND FOR OUR TROOPS. BUT I AM DEFFINENTLY AGAINST OUR GOVERMENT. OUR GOVERNMENT IS FULL OF A BUNCH OF RICH HATEFUL PREJUDICE PEOPLE. UNTILL WE CLEAN UP OUR GOVERNMENT WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CLEAN UP OTHER PEOPLES GOVERNMENTS. LET ME BE PRESIDENTR ATLEAST I WOULD BE HONEST AND TRUTHFUL TO AMERICA. IF WE ARE IN TIME OF HURT AND ECONOMLY PHYSICALY AND EMOTIONALY I WOULD CALL FOR A RECESS. TAKE A DAY OFF AND COME BACK THE NEXT DAY FRESH. WE WORK TILL WE HURT AND HURT TILL WE ARE MAD. LETS WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE IT ABETTER PLACE INSTEED OF A PLACE OF DECIT AND LIES.

[PAUL KEAN]

Guys....Theres a lot of interesting comments around..However the bottom line for me is we're losing too many troops, too many civilians are dying on a daily basis...and for what?..What has been acheived in Iraq?
If we leave the country will be in a mess..if we stay..it will be in a mess..What has been acheived?
I listen to the Politicians on a daily basis saying "Things are improving"..What utter bollocks..If anyone believes that then they're really a dumbass.
And then all indications are that Iran will be the next "port of call"..Give me a fuckin break...How stupid are we?..Theres a fine difference between being the "Police Force of the Democratic World" and being an asshole.
No wonder so many people hate us!
Bottom line is we need to start "talking" to other nations..(whether that may be Syria or whoever, and yes that WOULD be extremely difficult/throat wrenching to do) in order to move forward..Sometimes you have to compromise...Lifes like that

PK

[Chris Hulley]

Abraham Lincoln:

"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure."

[@Rob]

Person 1 - George Bush will not be president in 2009. Thank god!

Person 2 - Um yeah because there is a 2 term limit.

Person 1 - Right he will not be in the oval office in 2009.

Person 2 - Because is is not allow.

Person 1 - Exactly he won't be there.

Person 2 - Idiot.

This comment was for all you jack asses that trying to mock our current President by using bumper stickers/ printed out comments of how there will be a new President in 2009. Yeah no s**t. He has served 2 terms. He is not allowed to serve again so of course there is going to be a new President.

[Dalebert]

I already played that game for a while. I defended the war, not because I supported it, but because I hated the anti-war arguments and tactics, which struck me as contrived at the time. Now I'm vehemently against the war.

I never really liked Bush so much as I hated Kerry and the Democrats. I now realize all politics is evil. I'm not prejudiced anymore. I hate everyone.

[Tomas Liubinas]

Wasn't it enought to read some history books to predict the outcome? Huh history books? What is books?

Greetings from Lithunia
http://tomas.liubinas.com

[Andy Watt]

I like it - a venture capitalism analogy for attacking countries anywhere!

And you didn't even factor in the handy supply of non-domestic oil for the US that heavily either...

I do think you're being a bit too carefully blinded trying to make a counterpoint to your own (principled) stand when you suggest that nobody could have seen the outcome. Anyone who can think realistically about possible outcomes of prosecuting a war on an entire coutry on the other side of the planet (well, pretty much) from your own and factor in the fundamental idiocy of humanity to make the same mistakes over and over again (especially in the heat of battle), plus knowing what we know about guerilla warfare and "mopping up" in other conflict zones (and how hard it is) could see we'd end up with a royal cluster-f*** at the end.

Ultimately invading Iraq was right because Daddy didn't finish the job :)

[Dave]

Tony,

ONe last one, just because this one pisses me off so bad - US Forces are not getting their asses kicked by IEDs and RPGs. That is just a submornic statement.

We have certainly taken causualties from those, but overall, if we want to start comparing body counts, US forces have killed a hell of a lot more fighters than they have killed of us.

US casualties in this conflict are historically low and the enemy has lost every time they stood toe-to-to with our forces. It is just the enemy knows that weak willed people like you will do their job for them by having the politicans force defeat on the military.

And before you respond with moronic "Chicken Hawk" stuff, I am a vet, and I served in Iraq, and I went on combat missions. How about you?

[Dave]

Tony,

Oh, on your (unsubstantiated) claim that AQ in Iraq has nothing to do with AQ overall, how do you rectify that Zarcawi was a Jordanian with close ties to OBL who wrote operational updates to AQ leaders?

[Dave]

Tony...

Your post might be interesting if it didn't debunk itself.

This link http://icasualties.org/oif/iraqi.aspx allows you to toggle between security and civilian deaths. There are clearly more civilian deaths.

Your trend site is just a rolling hot spot map that doesn't take off pacified areas. Deaths are down dramatically over the past 6 months, both civilian and security forces.

Since you went 0-2 spinning lies, I won't bother with the others.

Get your facts straight.

[Caliban Darklock]

@ Radek:

That's not about being a Nazi. It's about being human. We are fundamentally a tribal species, and if THEIR tribe must die that OUR tribe might live, we're generally fine with that. Historically, tribes that believe otherwise have a marked tendency toward extinction.

[Caliban Darklock]

Scott, my compliments.

You have done a reasonably good job of covering all the bases related to why I believe attacking Iraq was the Right Thing.

Usually, when someone who disagrees with me tries to see my side of the story, they lock onto deeply flawed and poorly reasoned arguments I would never make. You haven't done that. That's amazingly astute of you.

I think it really comes down to that final question of belief. Either you believe Bush did a competent job, or you don't, but the vast majority of us are simply unqualified to have an informed opinion. We have to take it on faith.

It's sort of like a religion, in a way.

[gigs94]

If your psychology hypothesis is right, you might in ~30 days.

[Gerald]

The war in Iraq and any future wars can be avoided if the U.S. just follows the "A Realistic Plan for World Peace" below. I did not right this, but happened across it one day while surfing. Here it is:

A Realistic Plan for World Peace
a.k.a
Nuke the Moon
by Frank J.

"Gotta nuke something."
-20th century philosopher Nelson Muntz

World peace cannot be achieved by sitting around on our duffs singing hippy songs to the moon. Peace can only be achieved through excessive acts of seemingly mindless violence. Who do bullies pick on in the playground? The giant, crazy looking guy who looks ready to snap and kill the person nearest or some harmless looking weenie who appears to do anything to avoid conflict? People pick on the weenie because people like to start fights they think they can win. In the same way, people will continue to attack America and our interests when they get the idea that they can piss off America without us immediately eradicating them and everyone around them in the most painful way possible.

Now, if I were president, here's what I would do. Next time some country does something we don't take a pining too, such as supporting terrorism or speaking French, I'd pick the dumbest reason for an attack, e.g., "A 'q' should always be followed by a 'u'. I don't make the rules, Iraq, but I will enforce them." The more irrational you look, the more scared the country will be that you will really hit them hard. I'd then give the country the old one-week notice until bombing starts. Then, after just twenty-four hours, I'd start bombing. When the stupid dictator calls to complain, I'd say, "I meant one week max. Oh, and by the way, ground troops - one week." I'm sure that would be enough to capitulate the average evildoer, but some extra measures could help intimidate others as well. Like, instead of just saturation bombing a city, super-saturation bomb it. After annihilating everything until nothing but ash is left, I'd nuke the ashes. It's that extra bit of extremely disproportionate use of force that makes other countries start to wonder if America "has it all together" and really worrying who we'll lash out against next.

Of course, Europe will start complaining, and Europe's bad mouthing of America gives comfort to our enemies. I mean, those guys values are so messed up they think calling someone a "cowboy" is an insult. Best idea would be to assassinate the leader of the first European country we hear a peep out of. This will probably make us look evil, though, when we want the image of crazy and violent. So, when the Europeans ask why, I'd claim to never have heard of the person: "I didn't even know France had a leader. Sure it wasn't suicide? Yeah, committing suicide with a sniper rifle would be hard, but not impossible if you had a five-hundred yard length of string to work the trigger." Assassination does seem a little extreme, but we're talking about Europe. I mean, what are they going to do other than quickly capitulate under a mild threat of force. We'll probably start seeing, "We all love America!" parades in bids to not be our next targets.

Now the world will be pretty convinced that America is frick'n nuts and just looking for a fight, but we need to really ingrain it into everyone's conscious so that no one will ever even contemplate crossing us. This requires making good use of our nukes. I know, nukes can kill millions of people, but they sure aren't doing anyone any good just sitting around. I mean, how many years has it been since we last dropped a bomb on someone? No one even thinks we'll actually use one now. Of course, using nukes shouldn't be done haphazardly; all uses have to be well planned out because the explosions are so cool looking that we'll want to give the press plenty of notice so they can get pictures of the mushroom cloud from all sorts of different angles. But what to nuke? Well, usually the idea is populated cities, but, by the beliefs of my morally superior religion, killing is wrong. So why can't we be more creative than nuking people. My idea is to nuke the moon; just say we thought we saw moon people or something. There is no one actually there to kill (unless we time it poorly) and everyone in the world could see the results. And all the other countries would exclaim, "Holy @$#%! They are nuking the moon! America has gone insane! I better go eat at McDonalds before they think I don't like them."

But why stop there. We've got like tons of national parks; we surely wouldn't miss just one if we nuked it. Our excuse will be that we heard a drug dealer was hiding there. Then the foreign nations would be like, "Sacre bleu! These Americans are nuking themselves! Surely they will think nothing of bombing us! Let's adapt their vapid culture as our own so they might consider us one of them."

Now all other countries will be completely freaked out and never even dream of messing with us. They'll say the name of America with hushed whispers and always praise us in public for fear of reprisal. We'd be like an Old Testament god to them; perhaps they would even start worshiping us - actually, we should make that a condition of favored trade status. Not only will we have ensured peace for ourselves, but we can also now easily end any conflict between other countries. We see two nations warring over some territory, all we'll have to do is say, "Hey, break it up," and they'll be racing to concede to each other rather than get on the bad side of the "crazy, homicidal Americans." And, if people are being oppressed by an evil government, all we'll have to do is say, "Hey you! Stop being communist!" and the next day they'll have elections, capitalism, and free-press to keep from having their country turned into a parking lot. It will be that easy to motivate our fellow man, because there is hardly anything people treasure more than not being annihilated.

Now all that's needed to keep peace is to come up with new and creative ways of looking insane and belligerent without actually harming anyone. Missile defense is probably a good step in that direction. Next time some country steps out of line, we launch a nuclear missile at them. Just seconds before it hits, we blow it up with our missile defense so that everyone there sees the huge explosion in the sky. Then the president would just call up their leader and say, "Hey, we lost sight of our SDI test. Did you see if it worked?"

By now, you're probably saying, "Great idea. But how to do we pay for all these random acts of violence?" Just create an "Other Country Tax", a tax for being a country other than the U.S. After implementing my plan, all the countries will be eager to pay the money, and probably add a nice tip to win favor.
So there you have it, a real peace plan that could actually work. Warmongering pacifists want us to act all nice such that countries think we're rational and won't kill everyone with a blind fury, thus making it possible they might actually attack us and draw us into a war. But, if America follows my idea and lashes out at the slightest provocation with unmeasured vengeance, there can be peace. So there's the choice: either be a homicidal maniac thus ensuring peace and love in the world, or be some pacifist hippy while the streets flow with the blood of the innocent.

[Radek]

Who said Iraq was going to attack us?

[Giuseppe]

@ Steve:

[If 1,000 people in another country have to die so that my son can live happily and grow old, then I FULLY support that decision.]

Replace "1,000 people" with "6,000,000 jews" and you're on the same page with good ol' Adolf. In other words, you're a nazi, Steve. And with this I don't mean to insult you, but just to remark that what you say is a factual endorsment of nazism. (or even worst. Hitler killed approx 1 jew every 10 germans. You're planning to kill 1000 foreigners for every american).
Congratulations.

[Iain]

Quoth Pay Attention "1. Was it morally right to bring down Saddam? If you think we should have minded our own business in 1941 in Europe, because Hiler didn't attack us, then, no. But it's a pretty hard case to make that he should have been allowed to go on gassing & murdering his citizens, and his sons ordering up Shi'a school girls to rape on order."

Interesting point Pay. Erm, however, his gassing activities had pretty much ceased by this point in time. They were at their most heinous when America actually showed fullest support for Saddam. Sanctions had prevented his worst atrocities - OK so he was never going to be nice but most intimidation was low level by 2000. So morals clearly can be seen t play little part in US actions.

[Tony]

I am sorry, but this is the worst you have ever written. You usually are quite sharp with your reasoning. Thanks for pointing out that you are taking the opposite side from yours just to test it. But you fail miserably when it comes to facts. Get your facts together.

- Violence is NOT directed mainly at the civilian population of Iraq, it is directed at the security forces, whether foreign or local. Your media is giving you a wrong impression. See http://icasualties.org/oif/iraqi.aspx for reference.

- The US gov knew that the WMD thingy was all lies. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgfzqulvhlQ for reference

- The people fighting in Iraq claiming to be AlQ are as close to AlQ as the people running around in cloth of their favorite sports team.

- Violence is not "trending down". See http://www.obleek.com/iraq/index.html for reference

- US involvement in the Middle East is giving hardliners everywhere in the region a jolly good time (Imagine Iran together with Syria occupying Canada - see who would get elected in the US. Hardliners or Peaceniks?)

- The US, if anything, did not "sharpen its war-making tools". US forces are getting their asses kicked by RPGs, AK-47s and self made (!) IEDs, for crying out loud! See http://www.google.com/search?q=+site%3Awww.exile.ru+%22war+nerd%22+iraq+IBLOCK_ID%3D35

Get your facts straight, man!

[bloodrage bob]

interesting commentary. quite vitriolic, no? it would seem that leftists *really* don't like having their dogma challenged, and respond to that challenge most stridently. most educational, and illuminating.

nice work, scott. now! ready for something REALLY risky? run a post on the bell curve, or mention stats re race and intelligence. or crime and race. or race and poverty: mention the *wild* success of the 1970's vietnam boat people, then ask why poor folks who've been here for hundreds of years and *already spoke the language* can't do that.

but be careful: they're dangerous questions. as that nobel prize winner recently discovered.

[Mike Ratner]

Get the facts straight, it's not one thousand innocent Iraqi deaths because of the invasion, occupation and on-going air strikes on civilian populations try 60,000 plus according to the American Red Cross and that figure is probably grossly underestimated when you figure the stress toll, disease and starvation. What passive sheep we American's are to have let the President have his way.

Onward Christian Soldiers!

[Steven McDaniel]

@ Charles
"@ Steven McDaniel

"It has not even been proven yet that Bush was wrong about WMDs."

What will it take to prove it, then? In a 100 years you'd say the same thing. The "just because there's no evidence doesn't mean it didn't happen" argument begins to lose steam after a while. Don't you think after all this time, scrutinizing every bit of paper, interviewing anyone who could have been involved, and inspecting every square inch of the country that we've spent billions to occupy in the past few years, don't you think we'd have found some shred of them? However, that is not the point."

Perhaps reiterating what I said, that there is a best selling book by a former general of Saddam's Air Force asserting that the WMDs were moved to Syria by airplanes would be significant enough to jog you out of that coma. General Sada may have been in a better position than you to see what was going on. Only someone paralysed by liberal cynicism could not see his assertion as something worthy of consideration. Read my post again. I don't buy your assertion that there are no WMDs period, world without end. I am annoyed that someone would cling to such an untenable position as if it were holy writ. Admit it - you DON'T know they don't exist. However, at least you're not chirping along with the party of Rolling Stoned magazine that 'Bush lied, thousands died.' That is such an easy mantra for vindictive libelous armchair generals to chant. So I agree and disagree strongly with your post, Charles.

[Phil]

There is one key cost that you forgot in your equation. The lives of American soldiers. I doubt that anyone could have predicted that more US soldiers would die in Iraq than the number of civilians who died on 9/11, but in the process of "protecting" American citizens, US soldiers were put in harms way.

If you only consider the loss of American lives, assume that there was a 1% chance that Iraq had WMDs and they were willing to give them to terrorists to use in the US. Let's assume then that the damage caused by such a terrorist attack would kill 10,000 Americans and injure 100,000. Now, let's normalize that by the 1% probability of that happening and we get an average of 100 American lives and 1,000 Americans injured. In order for attacking Iraq to make sense in terms of American lives, you should theoretically need to expect less than 100 soldiers to be killed and less than 1,000 soldiers to be wounded. According to wikipedia, there were 358 US soldiers killed in action and 776 wounded in action in Desert Storm. If you assume that things would go easier the second time around, I'd say that it's pretty close to a tie in terms of American lives.

In the above analysis I assumed that American lives are infinitely more valuable than Iraqi lives. (I remember hearing people on talk radio post-9/11 about the merits of "bombng the entire Middle-East into glass"). I also have to assume that an American soldier's life is just as valuable as an American civilian's. (To be honest, I'm not sure that is the way the administration sees it, so the invasion might seem to make even more sense). Money wasn't really an issue anyway because Iraq was going pay for their own liberation with oil.

One of my assumptions was that the Bush administration believed that there was at least a 1% chance that Iraq had WMD and was willing to hand them over to Al-Qaeda. I think that's possible because they wanted to believe it. It's called "confirmation bias". It causes us to ignore evidence which contradicts our own opinions. Once you ignore the inspections (Saddam must still be hiding WMDs from the inspectors since he did that before), ignore the contradicting intelligence (this time, our unreliable paid informer is telling us the truth, despite the contradicting reliable intelligence), and ignore all of the evidence that Saddam and Bin Laden didn't get along (they are both Muslims who hate America, and Saddam did support suicide bombers in Israel), then you would certainly have to conclude that there is at least a 1% chance that Saddam would give WMDs to Al-Qaeda to use.

I guess I can understand how invading Iraq may have seemed like a good idea at the time to some people. I couldn't come to that same conclusion because I happen to think that Iraqi's lives have some value, at least 1% of that of an American. and I think that given ALL of the pre-war intelligence, the odds of a catastrophic Iraqi-aided terrorist attack on US citizens to be closer to 0.01% than 1%.

[Iain]

I saw the evidence presented and it was pretty plain that it was cooked up. When they resort to using a student essay as evidence then you know something is wrong.

By the logic presented presumably then I might say 'That Scott Adams was looking covetously at my wife. I'd better kick the crap out of him.' If I do this to a hundred people and even one of them was harbouring unwanted amorous regard for my spouse - well, that is just fine. And surely that chap in a hooded top walking past is asking to be shot - obviously just casing my house for a burglary.

Anyhow, what is interesting is the amount of space cadets still prepared to defend the war. The war amounts to a useful means to syphon more of the ordinary US people's money to corporate pockets, quite successfully. Yet you lot take this shafting and say more please?

For instance the old canard that Saddam supported terrorism? Maybe he funded Hamas to a certain extent but he certainly never invloved himself in global Islamism. The crazy justifications come up with here do make me feel just a little ill - not Scott particularly - of course, as clearly eveything is game but some of the replies here...