Not shot

The estimable Norm Geras comments on why we fought the Iraq War:

Is it any wonder that the New Statesman is in difficulty when it has a former editor of the calibre of Peter Wilby? Wilby's opening move today:

Now it is clear that Saddam Hussein had no WMD, that al-Qaida has become stronger in Iraq, and that liberal democracy has failed to spread through the Middle East, one fallback justification for the Iraq invasion remains: it overthrew a murderous, fascist dictator.

No, it's not a fallback justification. It's central, upfront. But Wilby's special distinction in the purveying of this now tired theme is that he can't even purvey it with a minimum of consistency. So, in the same sentence as he gives out the fallback justification, he also has as one of the presumably non-fallback justifications the spreading-liberal-democracy one. I think that notion might just have been connected with overthrowing 'a murderous, fascist dictator'.

Yet again we come back to the same question: Why do people who presumably think living in a liberal democracy is a good thing, think that spreading liberal democracy and even overthrowing murderous, fascist dictators is a bad thing?

Can it be that they really think that actually we all live under murderous, fascist dictatorships, and are therefore not in a position to judge other countries?

And if they really think that, does it not occur to them to wonder why those who noisily advance ideas of this kind were not taken out and shot years ago?