Burning Straw
The creature who pronounces on foreign policy while Tony Blair is out of the country has expunged more wisdom, it appears.
For the benefit of those worried about the illegitimacy of the Iraqi constitutional process, he pointed out that "similar processes in the US and Northern Ireland had taken years to complete." I was not aware that the US constitution had been drawn up in circumstances similar to the Iraq occupation, aside from the likelihood that Washington and his friends didn't have much electricity either. In Ireland, apparently, "we are in a sense involved in a constitutional process" now that the IRA have stopped blowing people up. In Iraq, we are involved in a constitutional process even though the coalition and the insurgents have not stopped blowing people up. The similarities are, presumably, obvious.
The straw in the suit went on to point out the importance of the UN's role once the UN has been successfully circumvented, and to highlight the natural affinity between right-thinking persons and those members of the UN who agree with Bush and Blair. He noted that "we didn't get everything right", a viewpoint from which I can scarcely find it in me to diverge, and blamed this deplorable fact on "the circumstances immediately after the military action", which apparently were someone else's fault. Among other things, "the Saddam regime", despite all the money we threw at it during the 1980s, was inconsiderate enough to collapse too quickly, allowing precious wads of our benevolence to become lost in the chaos between the retreat of Evil and the advance of Good.
The suited straw "admitted that the extent of violence in Iraq was not wholly due to the way in which the country was governed under Saddam". This may well be true, at least in the case of coalition violence (or "involvement in a constitutional process"); though perhaps not quite so true in the case of insurgent violence (or "violence"). For example, it seems quite plausible that some of the insurgents might remember who Saddam's main backers were during the least pleasant years of his unlamented leadership, and might even be feeling a bit annoyed with us.
The grey and yellow concluded by displaying his ignorance of the distinction between "refute" and "deny", and stating accurately that "there is no guarantee whatsoever that we would have been safer had we not taken military action in Iraq". This is certainly true. Similarly, if I continue to refrain from pouring petrol over Jack Straw and then lighting the petrol, there is no guarantee whatsoever that I will be safer as a result. But by Jack Straw's logic, that shouldn't stop me. Applying his own argument, it would be "overwhelmingly more right than wrong" to set fire to Jack Straw, always assuming he had the good grace to collapse slowly enough for my rectitude to make itself felt.
For the benefit of those worried about the illegitimacy of the Iraqi constitutional process, he pointed out that "similar processes in the US and Northern Ireland had taken years to complete." I was not aware that the US constitution had been drawn up in circumstances similar to the Iraq occupation, aside from the likelihood that Washington and his friends didn't have much electricity either. In Ireland, apparently, "we are in a sense involved in a constitutional process" now that the IRA have stopped blowing people up. In Iraq, we are involved in a constitutional process even though the coalition and the insurgents have not stopped blowing people up. The similarities are, presumably, obvious.
The straw in the suit went on to point out the importance of the UN's role once the UN has been successfully circumvented, and to highlight the natural affinity between right-thinking persons and those members of the UN who agree with Bush and Blair. He noted that "we didn't get everything right", a viewpoint from which I can scarcely find it in me to diverge, and blamed this deplorable fact on "the circumstances immediately after the military action", which apparently were someone else's fault. Among other things, "the Saddam regime", despite all the money we threw at it during the 1980s, was inconsiderate enough to collapse too quickly, allowing precious wads of our benevolence to become lost in the chaos between the retreat of Evil and the advance of Good.
The suited straw "admitted that the extent of violence in Iraq was not wholly due to the way in which the country was governed under Saddam". This may well be true, at least in the case of coalition violence (or "involvement in a constitutional process"); though perhaps not quite so true in the case of insurgent violence (or "violence"). For example, it seems quite plausible that some of the insurgents might remember who Saddam's main backers were during the least pleasant years of his unlamented leadership, and might even be feeling a bit annoyed with us.
The grey and yellow concluded by displaying his ignorance of the distinction between "refute" and "deny", and stating accurately that "there is no guarantee whatsoever that we would have been safer had we not taken military action in Iraq". This is certainly true. Similarly, if I continue to refrain from pouring petrol over Jack Straw and then lighting the petrol, there is no guarantee whatsoever that I will be safer as a result. But by Jack Straw's logic, that shouldn't stop me. Applying his own argument, it would be "overwhelmingly more right than wrong" to set fire to Jack Straw, always assuming he had the good grace to collapse slowly enough for my rectitude to make itself felt.
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