AndrewSullivan.com, 14 February: “This war is a just one. We didn't start it. Saddam did - over twelve years ago. We responded at the time with a restraint and patience and deliberation that would have made Aquinas proud. After victory, we acted with a magnanimity utterly unreciprocated by the dictator we routed - even to the extent of leaving Saddam in power, even to the point of betraying in grotesque fashion the millions who dreamed of freedom - only to see slavery instead. (If only to right that horrifying wrong, we have a moral responsibility to finish the job.) We made a truce with the tyrant, with conditions that the entire world has witnessed him routinely violate. Our enemy, moreover, has no moral compunction whatsoever - he has violated every maxim of a just war imaginable. He has murdered opponents; he has gassed innocent and defenseless civilians; he preaches genocidal hatred and practises torture; he has laid waste to the environment; and made a mockery of religion. He has refused to disarm; and lies through his teeth. When fanatical murderers from that region developed a terrorist network and massacred thousands of Western civilians, we realized that Saddam's weapons couldn't be contained in his lair with any guarantee of security. So we made a belated attempt to live up to the truce of 1991, to finish the unfinished job. We could have destroyed him and his regime at any point. We didn't. We waited; we sent in inspectors; we were forced into sanctions. We went to the U.N. again to beg for help and support. The U.N. complied, provided a clear resolution, with the burden of proof finally on Saddam. Just as clearly, Saddam has violated it, and continues to violate it….. By any rational, objective standard, we have done everything we possibly can to settle this war peacefully. To say that we are in a rush to war is an obscene fabrication, a statement of wilful amnesia, a simple denial of history.”
