Iraq Trio

> John Keegan is writing, in today's Daily Telegraph (registration required), about how wars end. Read what he has to say. Along the way:

There is... an undeniable fascination in watching Jon Snow, of Channel 4 News, energise himself for his early evening denunciation of Anglo-American activity in Iraq. About 5.30 he comes on to rehearse his sense of outrage. At 7pm we get the full display of apoplexy and hysteria - raised voice, flushed face, physical trembles.
.....
If those who show themselves so eager to denounce the American President and the British Prime Minister feel strongly enough on the issue, please will they explain their reasons for wishing that Saddam Hussein should still be in power in Baghdad.

Not exactly how I would put it myself, but a worthwhile reminder all the same.

> Cicada highlights this item about a report from Egypt's Ibn Khaldoun Center for Development Studies:

Despite war and occupation, Iraq has seen a surge in human rights organizations, political parties and independent newspapers - entities almost unheard of under Saddam Hussein, said a report by an Arab think tank.

Cicada's comment:

Try because of the war and occupation.

Indeed. But the Ibn Khaldoun people may have anticipated this angle:

"Even though all indications of political rights and human rights mentioned in this report clearly illustrate that the situation in Iraq after occupation is much better than Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the truth remains that any situation would have been better than Saddam Hussein," the report said.

Ah, that makes everything clearer. It's not because of the war, it's because of... any situation.

> Suzanne Goldenberg wrote in the Guardian a few days ago of America's 'last good war'. She didn't mean Iraq. Or Afghanistan. Or Kosovo. No, she meant the Second World War, aka World War II. Now, I don't know where the phrase 'last good war' originates, but Goldenberg didn't put it in quotation marks to indicate that she was quoting or alluding to someone else's view, or that she meant to distance herself in any way from the substance of the judgement implied by that phrase. I'm reminded of something Marx wrote, critically, in The Poverty of Philosophy:

Thus, there has been history, but there is no longer any.

So, equally, for a wide section of the liberal left, there once was a good American war, a very long time ago, but there hasn't been one since. And so, too, a sense of solidarity with the victims of fascist and similar forms of oppression once counted for more with more people in that political quarter than did hostility to everything America does.