The moral authority of the question

Some days ago I quoted here a challenge posed by John Keegan to opponents of the Iraq war:

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.

In response Chris Young indulged in some heavy irony as to whether John Keegan possesses the moral authority to issue such a challenge; or, what amounts to the same thing, is to be regarded as being any kind of moral authority. Chris plainly thinks not. Since, however, he himself goes on to acknowledge the legitimacy of the question Keegan was asking, I'm not sure why he should have troubled himself with the heavy irony or, more particularly, with the impolite suggestion relating to a part of Keegan's anatomy. As Chris knows, the validity of a statement can be judged independently of how much you like the person making it. Similarly, a question may be to the point whatever you think of its human source. Chris could simply have taken the question as having been posed by someone - anyone - whom he is willing to credit with moral authority. But never mind.

The day after John Keegan had posed his question to readers of the Daily Telegraph, Correlli Barnett wrote to the paper to give an answer on his own behalf. It reads in part:

Sir John Keegan challenges those of us who have opposed an Anglo-American attack on Iraq from the time the project was first mooted in 2002 to "explain our reasons for wishing that Saddam Hussein should still be in power in Baghdad"... I willingly do so.

...[T]he political and social condition of the Iraqis if Saddam had remained in power is of no relevance to foreigners like us and the Americans, or to the question raised by Keegan.
.....
[U]nlike the present confused and ineffective occupation regime, Saddam would have held Iraq in the same tight grip that he had for 35 years. There would have been no widespread disorder, and no new battle-front for al-Qa'eda to exploit.

Correlli Barnett went on to claim that Iraq and the world would be a better place had it not been for the war - which is, of course, one of the principal matters in dispute between those who supported the war and those who opposed it.

Now, Chris, I know, would not endorse the first of Barnett's reasons cited above. I doubt, also, that he'd want to express himself as Barnett does with the second of those reasons: 'would have held Iraq in the same tight grip' etc. Still, expressed thus or otherwise, that is essentially the position of those who opposed the war in a clear-eyed way. They thought it was better, all things considered, for Saddam to remain in power than to be removed by war. Many of us didn't feel able to give our voices, our feet or anything else, towards that.

Perhaps it is because Chris is, for his part, willing to face Keegan's question head-on that he allowed himself to be diverted from Keegan's question towards his person. But not all opponents of the war are, or have been, this clear and straightforward. From before the war began right up to the present moment, there are many in the anti-war camp who aren't too keen to look the question in the face. (For indirect evidence of this, see, just for one example, the matter dealt with in my post here.)