"Again wrong. They actually did do that."

The Shah could have put down the revolution by mowing down much more than 100 people.

It's physically impossible to defeat men with automatic weapons who are prepared to use them. The Chinese tried it in 1989. The Iraqis tried it in 1991. The Iranians have tried it several times. Soldiers in WW1 on both sides tried it.

What is needed for freedom in Iran is an external military invasion, to make their revolution a success.

It's the way democracy SHOULD spread. These people shouldn't have to fight alone, to be mowed down by automatic weapons. The only thing that is standing in the way of success is YOUR BRAIN. It's literally that simple. Western brains are the ONLY thing preventing worldwide democracy. — Paul Edwards

Yes, we can help. Yet that is a delicate issue just how to do it.. In the end it's your job in Australia to either to cherish uphold democracy. No foreigners can do it, it's only you and your society can do it. And no bombing of Australians will make things better.

I do understand that we have to dismiss the stereotypes we have of people. If the Korean War would have been lost, we would now treat all Koreans as we treat North Korea and we couldn't imagine a Korean culture and prosperity that now exists in South Korea. The idea of K-pop would be absurd. So democracy can take root anywhere. But for starters, there ought to be building blocks like a people and a nation, for starters.

Now to answer your actual point - why did 87% of Afghans support the US military intervention if foreign forces are so bad? Why did 50% of Iraqis support the US military intervention if foreign forces are so bad? What percentage of Australians do you think would support a US military intervention if we had a military coup and a cruel dictator? I would hope 99%, but I don't know. Whatever percentage it is, those are the only ones I actually care about. I don't care if my ideological enemy opposes my intervention. I will arm my ideological allies and they will take care of the rest. — Paul Edwards

And both of these are failures. You don't look at the real examples of success.

Bill Clinton was successful in getting finally peace in ex-Yugoslavia. It hasn't flared up. But it wasn't NATO fighterbombers that brought down Milosevic. It was the Serbs themselves along some little support from the State Department. Yet now democratic Serbia is an ally of Russia: they do remember who bombed them.

Serbs having enough of Milosevic:


Namibia was a success. That country didn't go the way as Angola or DRC once it finally got it's independence.


And so on. Don't dwell on the epic failures.

then you have vigilante justice. Hmmm... One wonders why no modern civilization accepts that. We're all fools! Oh, if only we were all batman and listened to Paul Edwards.

We've previously established that not all methods of preventing crime are acceptable. You even agreed but we're now back at "anything that will stop the crime is allowed, including another crime". That just opens the door of allowing me to shoot the cop, because he's committing a crime so I'm justified in doing so, which in turn allows someone else to stop me... Ad infinitum. In other words, what you just came up with is logically inconsistent and unworkable to reach any form of justice.

What is needed for freedom in Iran is an external military invasion, to make their revolution a success. — Paul Edwards

You mean to turn their Islamic revolution into a success or breath new air into it?

Yes, likely an external military invasion will indeed unify the Iranian people to fight a holy war alongside their Mullahs just as it did with Iraqi invasion.

The Iranians are surely used to sacrifices.

then you have vigilante justice. Hmmm... One wonders why no modern civilization accepts that. We're all fools! Oh, if only we were all batman and listened to Paul Edwards.

You can call it vigilante justice if you want. I call it a "posse". Internationally, there is no "modern civilization". There is a cesspit of dictators enslaving their populations. Yes, everyone should be Batman. The state of the world as it currently is, calls for the US and others to be Batman, and we should be thankful for it.

One day hopefully there will be wall-to-wall liberal democracies, and at that point I can agree for Batman to stand down.

We've previously established that not all methods of preventing crime are acceptable.

I'm not sure what you're quoting, but it's true that I don't think you should rape a woman to prevent her from jaywalking, even if you knew for certain that she was going to jaywalk.

You even agreed but we're now back at "anything that will stop the crime is allowed, including another crime". That just opens the door of allowing me to shoot the cop, because he's committing a crime so I'm justified in doing so, which in turn allows someone else to stop me... Ad infinitum. In other words, what you just came up with is logically inconsistent and unworkable to reach any form of justice.

Actually this is exactly what we face internationally. The USSR could have taken over the world. A posse was formed to contain the USSR. There was no justice in the USSR, and no justice when the USSR invaded someone else. There was no justice when the communists took over Vietnam with USSR help. We live in a fundamentally unjust world. One day I hope that will change, but right now, dictators are committing human rights abuses, and even if we wanted to, we can't stop all of them at once. I'm at least trying to establish a baseline of "we want to", combined with "call Batman IF NECESSARY (which it most definitely is)".

And yes, if we had tried to help liberate Eastern Europe during the Cold War, we would have been pushed back by USSR nukes. It's a rough-and-tumble world we live in. Not a neat set of laws that protect human rights. It is laughable to talk of justice in this environment.

Yes, likely an external military invasion will indeed unify the Iranian people to fight a holy war alongside their Mullahs just as it did with Iraqi invasion. — ssu

We really need to liberate Iran just to answer this question. We can't have such large gaps in our military knowledge because it prevents us from planning the future of the US military. In my opinion the US military needs to be pared down to pretty much just air power, so that it can effect wars of liberation, like Afghanistan and Libya were done. Actually, even Iraq could have been done with US air power alone, but it was never tried (for good reason).

You think the Iranians would be unified (100%) against the external invader, despite the fact that 87% of Afghans supported an external invader, 50% of Iraqis supported an external invader, god knows how many Libyans supported an external invader. You will never change your mind until we actually get into Iran and do it. And if the US follows my playbook, they will prove that it can be done purely by air, purely supporting revolutionaries. They should drop noise bombs on Iranian air bases, along with a radio that the base can use if they wish to defect. Try to jump-start both a military coup and a revolution.

The US, especially when acting as part of a coalition, especially a coalition that includes Australia, will be seen as a liberator, far different from the Iraqi conquest attempt. But you won't believe it until you see it with your own eyes. Hell, even then it might not be enough. You can view Iraq's 300+ political parties with your own eyes and still say "nope, no sign of democracy there".

The US, especially when acting as part of a coalition, especially a coalition that includes Australia, will be seen as a liberator — Paul Edwards

Actually you can make the coalition even more trustworthy by putting the Philippines or South Korea or Estonia in charge of the liberation, with the US just quietly providing muscle. This is what the world needs. We already have injustice. It's not like we are breaking a just system.

Paul, I applaud your moral vision, and feel you make many great points. You're arguing your case like a skillful lawyer, which perhaps you actually are.

I'm not sure you're fully taking in to account the results of the last two invasions.

We've been in Afghanistan for 20 years and the outcome is still unknown. We're being forced to leave because the Taliban have succeeded in exhausting the patience of the American people, just like in Vietnam. The invasion of Iraq went a long way to undermining the unity of the democracies, basically making it politically impossible for more invasions until everyone alive now is gone.

Whatever the merits of such a decision might be, there is basically no chance we're going to invade Iran or North Korea, unless their armies roll across the border in to some other country, which neither despot is stupid enough to do.

It was only in 1945 that democracy became a settled fact in Western Europe. Almost in my lifetime. The Middle East is centuries behind us in political maturity. Many in the Middle East view democracy as "we get elected and then jail our opponents".

An invasion of Iran would be a huge roll of the dice. It could literally lead to WWIII, see for example American and Russian troops delicately avoiding each other in Syria. If Afghanistan takes 20 years, and Iraq takes ten, Iran could take a generation. As evidence, note how determined the mullahs were in resisting the invasion of Saddam. A million dead.

In order to control the air over Iran we'd have to shock and awe Iran's air force, all it's missile installations, and navy too. Trying to shoot the mullah's henchmen from the air in the middle of urban chaos all over the country is not likely to go very well.

You have excellent goals, we just need a more sophisticated strategy. This is a very long chess game.

There was a reason to disband the old security forces in Iraq and do nation-building. This is no longer the case. The target country's security forces can take care of any hostile non-state actors, and anyhow, this is the same result you would get with a revolution. Are you saying revolutions are always wrong because there might be some hostile non-state actors? — Paul Edwards

I am not really suggesting any particular one-size-fits-all solution, I think we could begin to come to an agreement if you didn't want everything to go perfectly, your optimism is based on wishful thinking and that's an issue I'm taking up with you. If an Iran war is barely an inconvenience to the US or if it's a tumultuous decades-long transition, don't you think that matters? It's really important that Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam were not nearly as successful as you're making it out to be because that's probably the main reason why these wars are so infamous. If the wars were outstanding successes, easy wars for the US, the people rose up after being liberated and the transition to democracy was easy then this stigma for the wars that exists, would not be there.

It did work in South Vietnam. South Vietnam was a non-communist state like South Korea. It worked in South Korea. It worked in Panama. It worked in Grenada. It worked in Kosovo. It worked in Afghanistan. It worked in Iraq. It worked in Libya. It will work in Iran too if we can just get people to recognize reality. When Iraq has 300+ political parties instead of 1, you should be able to recognize that something changed. And if democracy indexes don't note that, don't trust them. Also, none of the 300+ parties wins 100% of the vote like Saddam did. — Paul Edwards

I think given your unwillingness to even accept the judgement of non-affiliated organisations who rate democracies and your unwavering but quite frankly unsubstantiated optimism about how easy future wars will be, that our disagreement is fairly well clarified but I don't see a way to proceed beyond that.

The Iraq war may not even deserve to be called a war of liberation, the US has made it clear many times that the war was to prevent Iraqi acquisition of WMDs. The war cost billions of dollars for the US, many lives were lost and WMDs weren't even there. The war damaged US credibility, it undermined US leadership and still today, Iraq is not far from anarchy, it is a place of instability and violence and its very existence is under threat. So when you zoom out from this issue of liberation, a high price was paid, we can't only focus on the morality of the invasion. It's just really hard to see why Westerners like Australians would support the Iraq war in my opinion, given the facts and benefit of hindsight.

If you really think your list (besides SK) is a list of US success then I just don't know what to say. The poor opinion of these wars is due to how badly they went but then you say that they were massive successes. You have this optimism for future wars despite every previous war being messy and horrible, I don't think it comes from analysis of history, it's just wishful thinking? Oh well, I think it is clear where the disagreement is and clear enough that we won't progress from here. If an Iran-US war occurs, I'll hope it goes as you say.

Paul, I applaud your moral vision, and feel you make many great points. You're arguing your case like a skillful lawyer, which perhaps you actually are. — Hippyhead

Yeah, @Ciceronianus the White @Hanover, what do you think? Lawyer material. :snicker:

Yeah, Ciceronianus the White @Hanover, what do you think? Lawyer material. — Benkei

Well, he's totally kicking your ass. Isn't that what lawyers are supposed to do?

Sure he does. He's committing fallacies, dismisses things he doesn't even take the effort to understand nd you think he's "kicking ass". Good to know you can't tell the difference between a fallacy and an argument.

The Iraq war may not even deserve to be called a war of liberation, the US has made it clear many times that the war was to prevent Iraqi acquisition of WMDs. The war cost billions of dollars for the US, many lives were lost and WMDs weren't even there. The war damaged US credibility, it undermined US leadership and still today, Iraq is not far from anarchy, it is a place of instability and violence and its very existence is under threat. — Judaka

95% of the time, Iraq war critics will list all the price tags for the war, conclude those prices were too high, and base their argument on that judgment. They may be factually correct in listing the price tags for the war, but it's still sloppy reasoning.

The appropriate calculation is to compare the price tags of the Iraq war to the price tags of doing nothing.

As example, if an escalating nuclear arms race between Iraq and Iran had been the price tag for doing nothing, are we willing to pay that price? A million people were killed in the Iran/Iraq war without any nukes involved.

I believe such sloppy reasoning occurs because critics of the war are comparing the horrors of the invasion and occupation to a mythical imaginary state of peace which never existed. The critics had no interest at all in the Iraqi people until the Americans got involved so evidence like the Iran/Iraq war and Saddam's ruthless oppression are obscure to them.

He's committing fallacies, dismisses things he doesn't even take the effort to understand what he's arguing about and you think he's "kicking ass". Good to know you can't tell the difference between a fallacy and an argument. — Benkei

I'm sorry, you're totally out of your depth here, though your enthusiasm is applauded.

You can call it vigilante justice if you want. I call it a "posse". Internationally, there is no "modern civilization". There is a cesspit of dictators enslaving their populations. Yes, everyone should be Batman. The state of the world as it currently is, calls for the US and others to be Batman, and we should be thankful for it.

One day hopefully there will be wall-to-wall liberal democracies, and at that point I can agree for Batman to stand down. — Paul Edwards

You're subscribing to might is right but only if you're a certain type of country. We're back at selective justice, which is no justice at all.

I'm not sure what you're quoting, but it's true that I don't think you should rape a woman to prevent her from jaywalking, even if you knew for certain that she was going to jaywalk. — Paul Edwards

We already established you shouldn't commit a crime to prevent a crime. If starting a war is a crime, even though it prevents another crime, it is still a crime and therefore can never be just. That's a matter of definition. A purely consequentialist approach necessarily fails, as was already illustrated several posts ago because you can't tell the difference between a crime and a just action without taking into account intent (which is why proving intent in criminal law is important).

Actually this is exactly what we face internationally. The USSR could have taken over the world. A posse was formed to contain the USSR. There was no justice in the USSR, and no justice when the USSR invaded someone else. There was no justice when the communists took over Vietnam with USSR help. We live in a fundamentally unjust world. One day I hope that will change, but right now, dictators are committing human rights abuses, and even if we wanted to, we can't stop all of them at once. I'm at least trying to establish a baseline of "we want to", combined with "call Batman IF NECESSARY (which it most definitely is)". — Paul Edwards

Of course there was justification. You just happen to disagree with it but it's exactly the same hubristic bullshit you're peddling now. The USSR thought they were bettering the world by installing communist regimes through violence. You believe installing liberal democracies through violence betters the world. Welcome to the world of aggressors.

Lmao. Of course I am. Will you answer the questions I posed earlier in this thread or are you just going to ignore it?

Any way, for what it's worth the Iraqi war was unjust because:

1. The US has subscribed to the UN system and therefore cannot declare a war of aggression single-handedly unless it was in defence of an immediate threat to itself or an ally, (in other words; if you agree another authority makes these decisions, you abide by that: pacta sunt servanda);
2. There was no right intention, the grounds for war were a lie, probably hiding other intentions but at no point was it to prevent the cutting of tongues or rape;
3. There was no just cause (please note that if preventing rape and torture would be a just cause then on that basis we can invade the US as well);
4. It wasn't a last resort because it was already proved no WMDs existed;
5. It fails because it was disproportional, causing more deaths in a timespan of 3 years than Saddam murdered during 24 years in power.

Will you answer the questions I posed earlier in this thread or are you just going to ignore it? — Benkei

I choose the later. You can declare victory if you want. Who cares? Not me.

I have nothing to declare but my genius.

Sorry, I'm not sure just what you mean. I'm something of a legal positivist, or realist, and think morality and the law are different things. My knowledge of international law is very limited.

I'm sure you can recognise a fallacy when you see one but the subject is rather boring.

Yeah, Ciceronianus the White @Hanover, what do you think? Lawyer material. :snicker: — Benkei

I'd love to weigh in to this decades old debate of whether Bush lied or if he were just profoundly mistaken, but I don't think I can read these 8 pages of comments (so far) and get really up to speed with the subtleties of this debate.

Generally, I think we can all agree that GW's legacy would be redefined from what it is today had there been WMD found in Iraq. He'd be seen as a Rambo like character who cut through the international bureaucracy and inaction and saved the world from mass death, a real life dragon slayer. Instead, he has to justify whether he's violated international law in waging this war and then he has to present the difficult argument of "well, even though my reasons were wrong, my result was good." I suppose some really bad guys got a stake through their heart, some average citizens were freed from a life under Hussein that was worse than the turmoil introduced by the war, but whether the world is an overall better place because of the war requires we impose all sorts of idiosyncratic values on an entirely foreign people we spend very little of our time thinking about.

The truth is that if the war were able to be judged a complete debacle from the most objective of standards, I don't think that would move the meter much as far as US sentiment goes. As long as the US can convince itself that it relied upon information it had good reason to believe accurate, and as long as it can convince itself that it's intentions were righteous, the war was just.

And this isn't meant to be overly condemning of the US. This whole event occurred at the heels of 9/11, the US was a powder keg waiting to explode, and we had a satanic character mocking the US and its inspectors, pretending to possess WMD. The ineptitude of Bush was child's play when compared to Hussein, and I have no difficulty heaping the lion's share of blame upon Hussein.

I have no difficulty heaping the lion's share of blame upon Hussein. — Hanover

I'm not sure how you can blame Hussein for decisions the US government made. It's not as if he made you do it, right?

I think the Iraq war in the aftermath of 9/11 was understandable but fundamentally wrong. Aside from the fact that the relationship between 9/11 and Iraq was very tenuous (practically non-existent) I was against it then, recognising the lies about WMDs in light of Hans Blix' reports at the time. Even so, if all the terrorists had come from Iraq, you can still wonder whether a war against Iraq would be justified if the terrorists weren't state sponsored. And that opens up the question as to how to deal with non-state sponsored terrorists in the first place. War seems inappropriate but Eichmann type abductions to have them stand trial would be something I would support. Extra-judicial killings in foreign countries like Bin Laden are wrong even if I didn't shed a tear because there the proof was pretty conclusive. But if you accept it there then next time we do it when the proof isn't that clear. Due process is valuable.

The unfunny thing with the Iraq war was that the US intelligence apparatus decided to believe Saddam at his word because he was of course trying to convince people he did have WMDs for fear of interventions by foreign countries and particularly Iran.

I meant to say I had nothing I could contribute as a lawyer, being largely ignorant of international law. But I think it clear that if one nation freely enters into a treaty, it should be bound by it. It should decline to enter into a treaty if it intends to disregard it whenever it believes it's in its interest to do so.

Apart from any legal issue, I think the U.S. shouldn't act as or consider itself the world's police and insert itself, unasked, into any conflict or state except in extreme circumstances. Clearly, we have trouble enough trying to police ourselves. We have neither the resources nor, I think, the will to engage in nation-building. I suppose, though, we could still "drop the Big One" as Randy Newman sang in the hope that "every city, the whole world round, would just be another American town." Yes, "how peaceful it would be--we'll set everybody free."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kg_LDeUEiWY

Actually, even Iraq could have been done with US air power alone, but it was never tried (for good reason). — Paul Edwards

Seems that you have no military training, because this is again nonsense.

Even the air campaign of Desert Storm could not give the final blow to a conventional army deployed on an absolutely flat desert that used very traditional strategy and tactics in it's deployment. No, you needed those 100 hours of the spear of the US Cold War army and it's allies to destroy the Iraqi forces.

Even Rumsfeld didn't believe that US air power alone would do it, even if he had widely erroneous ideas of how little troops you need to invade and occupy a country. (Or how cheap it would be.)

And if the US follows my playbook, they will prove that it can be done purely by air, purely supporting revolutionaries. — Paul Edwards

Well, I hope that Australian politicians will not listen to your politico-military strategy, because it's a disaster waiting to happen. Your reasoning is perhaps a direct result of assuming war being as the one sided as it has been with the US engaging dirt poor Third World countries in it's war on terror.

Actually, even Iraq could have been done with US air power alone, but it was never tried (for good reason).
— Paul Edwards
Seems that you have no military training, because this is again nonsense. — ssu

Again, this is why we need to do it. Even with the result of air-alone in Afghanistan and Libya, you're still disputing what is possible. During the 2003 Iraq war, some Iraqi generals turned over their bases to the coalition. Mostly the enemy deserted though. Either way, all you need to do is take over a small area and call for volunteers. There were long queues of Iraqis willing to join the new Iraqi security forces. We know that now, but we didn't know that for sure then. These volunteers can be armed, given air support, and they can do the rest of the job.

There was a reason we didn't use that strategy in 2003. Partly because we couldn't guarantee long lines of volunteers when Sistani could well have declared a jihad instead.

Even Rumsfeld didn't believe that US air power alone would do it, even if he had widely erroneous ideas of how little troops you need to invade and occupy a country.

He didn't have erroneous ideas. You're totally ignoring the fact that we got what we want with the troops actually used. And we have succeeded in lowering the barrier to war. Instead of having to convince people to pony up the cash for a 500,000-man invasion force like Desert Storm, we can instead point to Libya done purely from the air, or Afghanistan where the initial defeat was done purely from the air, or 2003 Iraq done with a relatively small force.

These wars of liberation require a new calculus compared to wars of conquest.

You're subscribing to might is right but only if you're a certain type of country. We're back at selective justice, which is no justice at all.

We already live in an unjust world. We're not breaking a just system. We're in the fortunate position where the strongest country in the world is a liberal democracy, and it has powerful NATO allies that are also liberal democracies. We have the ability to pounce, and that's exactly what we should be doing. We have the ability to make the world a more just place. Our politicians shouldn't say that out loud though. They should instead come up with some other bullshit reason for invading "just one more country". Because that is the strategic thing for our leaders to be doing. We don't want a "dictator alliance" to challenge NATO.

We already established you shouldn't commit a crime to prevent a crime.

No, that is not my position. If you need to jaywalk in order to stop a rape in progress, then by all means jaywalk. It depends on exactly what the circumstances are.

If starting a war is a crime, even though it prevents another crime, it is still a crime and therefore can never be just.

I don't consider starting a war to be a crime. I consider Saddam ordering rape and mutilation to be a crime.

That's a matter of definition. A purely consequentialist approach necessarily fails, as was already illustrated several posts ago because you can't tell the difference between a crime and a just action without taking into account intent (which is why proving intent in criminal law is important).

You're still not getting it. A good action does not require justification as far as intent is concerned. Only bad actions require justification. You need to update whatever textbook you are reading with this apparently new information.

Of course there was justification. You just happen to disagree with it but it's exactly the same hubristic bullshit you're peddling now. The USSR thought they were bettering the world by installing communist regimes through violence. You believe installing liberal democracies through violence betters the world. Welcome to the world of aggressors.

Yes, this is exactly correct. You just don't trust your own judgement that liberal democracies are true freedom, unlike communist slavery. So you're giving them moral equivalence. We spent an enormous amount of effort countering the "communism = freedom" brigade. Now we're in an enviable position able to finish off the job that our ancestors spent decades or even centuries doing. We should pounce. But in a cunning way that makes it as easy as possible for us by avoiding a "dictator alliance".

No, that is not my position. If you need to jaywalk in order to stop a rape in progress, then by all means jaywalk. It depends on exactly what the circumstances are. — Paul Edwards

Not anymore apparently when it no longer suits you. I suggest you read our exchanges and figure out your inconsistenties.

Any way, for what it's worth the Iraqi war was unjust because:

1. The US has subscribed to the UN system and therefore cannot declare a war of aggression single-handedly unless it was in defence of an immediate threat to itself or an ally, (in other words; if you agree another authority makes these decisions, you abide by that: pacta sunt servanda);

Again, if you think the UN creates a pact that protects Saddam's "right" to rape and mutilate, you should ignore that law for now, and do your best to get it changed. What it needs to be changed to is "all countries should be liberal democracies to be members of the UN, and any liberal democracy can liberate a dictatorship". Now you need to come up with a plan on how to make that change official. Good luck.

2. There was no right intention, the grounds for war were a lie, probably hiding other intentions but at no point was it to prevent the cutting of tongues or rape;

YOU should have been doing it to prevent cutting of tongues and rape, even if you are SURE that the US is not doing it for those reasons. Why don't you read Bush's "State of the Union" address in 2003 where he specifically says that Saddam was raping women, and if that's not evil then evil has no meaning?

3. There was no just cause (please note that if preventing rape and torture would be a just cause then on that basis we can invade the US as well);

No, rape and torture are already illegal in the US, and if you have evidence of either, you can report it to the US police and US media and it will be actioned in accordance with the limits of the US democracy. That's a far cry from Saddam LEGALLY chopping out people's tongues.

4. It wasn't a last resort because it was already proved no WMDs existed;

No such proof existed (I was fooled by Saddam's cagey attitude myself), nor does war need to be a last resort. It's just a resort. A tool. To be used whenever you've got your ducks in a row.

5. It fails because it was disproportional, causing more deaths in a timespan of 3 years than Saddam murdered during 24 years in power.

The actual 3.5 week war caused hardly any deaths. Subsequent deaths by terrorists against the new democratic state are on them, not the US.

BTW, the Russians lost 20 million keeping the Nazis at bay, and didn't even get freedom at the end of it. What is a fair price that Iraqis should pay for freedom?

You make me embarrassed for being part of the human race. Well done.

And that opens up the question as to how to deal with non-state sponsored terrorists in the first place. — Benkei

Yes, exactly. A good start would be to stop dictators from teaching children that the West is evil. Ultimately we need every country to be a clone of Australia, where a nation (both government and people) volunteers to spend its blood and treasure on *protecting* America, instead of *harming* America.

That still leaves the problem of individual Australian terrorists, but they are already being chased down to the best of the government's ability. And individual Australians have difficulty trying to create a group of terrorists. It's not like Afghanistan 2001 where they had a place to go to get trained.

It is insufficient for you to simply say "there were no WMD, so the war was wrong". You also need to address the response to 9/11. You also need to address the human rights abuses. Geostrategy is just one of the 3 reasons (which I provided a link to already).

You make me embarrassed for being part of the human race. Well done.

Translated: You ran out of arguments. Not surprising. You have a fundamentally untenable position. You need to support rape and mutilation to oppose the liberation of Iraq.