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Hi Guys, just found your site accidentally. Appears a bit slanted against your democratically elected leader/party. As a persistent UK labour party supporter, I have no political affinity with the right-wing agenda of either the UK conservative party or its US republican equivalent.

All the same, heaping the sins of the world on your currently elected leader does not progress matters. Everyone against the war in Iraq say "I", okay everyone is in 100% agreement. Everyone in favour of overthrowing the worlds most brutal dictator, well all 300,000 have been buried in the sand dunes of Iraq during the past thirty years.

In the UK, there is a highly vocal minority against the war in Iraq without any alternative resolution. Their main argument against Saddam was that the UK and the US armed this dictator and now we are reaping what we sowed. This is tripe, Margaret Thatchers right-wing Conservative government allowed exports to Iraq of arms before Tony Blairs Labour party election in 1997.

Picture this, Woodrow Wilson on September 11th 2001 on being told that his country is under attack from a bunch of clowns hiding out in a cave in afghanistan:

Answer A: Surrender + change religion + stop your female partner working + x + x + x
Ansere B: Retaliate
Answer C: Okay, what's your suggestion?

As for the few British Detainees in Cuba whom were picked up fighting the coalition forces in Afghansistan. I am all in favour of justice, as you sow, so should you reap. Suspend them from a crane 1,360 feet above NY ground-zero and let them choose between being burn't to death or a miracle. Yep, its a brutal suggestion, but that is the justice which they have exacted on innocents.

Ken Murray

Appears a bit slanted against your democratically elected leader/party.

The fact the Bush was elected democratically is up for debate - and also has no bearing on any of my criticisms of him or his administration.

All the same, heaping the sins of the world on your currently elected leader does not progress matters.

They made a giant mistake - it is not the sins of the world, it is their own voluntary actions. I was among millions who begged for this war not to start. They did it, they can take the heat for it.

Everyone against the war in Iraq say "I", okay everyone is in 100% agreement.

Then why did we go to war? The rest of your argument is ridiculously simplistic and trite. The world has watched dozens of brutal dictators and done nothing for decades. And there were plenty of alternatives to the US invasion. Of course it seems everyone in the world except you and Dick Cheney knows that Irag had NOTHING to do with 9/11. It wasn't "retaliation" in the case of Iraq, it was blind aggression and the carrying out of a decades long political plan. Sorry about your mistake of finding the site, it's okay with me if you don't come back.

Sorry if I caused you offence, it is not personal as the views you expressed are held by many. I simply take issue with the reasoning of the anti-Iraq war coalition.

To address your sentiment that Iraq was just another dictatorship. It was one of many dictatorship which originated in the Cold war while NATO and the Soviet pact overturned governments in countries to further their ideology. The Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in his genocide cleansing of 2,000,000 individuals was only stopped after the USA intervened. Saddam Hussein murdered 300,000 before his overthrow, thankfully his deranged son was granted a more humane death than his victims. There are many despots, but the Saddam regime was in a unique league of grief and tyranny towards the conclusion of the twentieth century.

Ideally, we would have a United Nations which could enforce humanitarian rights throughout the world. Instead, we have an organisation which was subject to organisational-inertia and blatant and flagrant abuses as witnessed in the Serbian-Bosnia-Kosovo war. It was only after NATO intervened in this other UN shables, that the internationally shameful ethnic genocide in the fragmenting Yugoslavia ended.

The simple truth is, whether you or I agree or disagree on some points - the people of Iraq are thankful for the intervention. The UN could never have ended the savage rule of the Saddam dynasty with any number of inspectors. Yes, the current situation is a mess, but the suicide bombers are Al-Qaida opportunistic 'Martyrs' from out-with Iraq. As a terrorist organisation with only one form of expression they bring no credit to their grievances.

Withdrawing from Iraq prior to the establishment of a self-governing democratic country is not an option. It is a painful sacrifice so far, but it is a better thing we do today for our children.

Kind regards
Ken Murray

"All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke

The simple truth is, whether you or I agree or disagree on some points - the people of Iraq are thankful for the intervention.

Ken I disagree with you - how do you, or I, or anyone else other than an Iraqi citizen, know what the people of Iraq think? There may be some, there may be a lot, that are thankful, but presuming that you know that they are is risky at best. You make the same assumptions that Cheney, Wolfowitz, Pearle, Feith, Bush and Rice made. There is a long slog ahead, at which in the end all Iraqis may hate us. I am on record saying this whole thing was a giant mistake, and I believe that more firmly each day (and no - it doesn't make me feel good to say that - it makes me feel sick). The US administration had no right to do what it did, no insight into Iraqi culture, (at least none of the decision makers did) and we are paying now with more and more dead on all sides. Look - no one is saying we can withdraw now - but we were wrong. There were other avenues to take before dropping bombs - its that simple.