Oh hello.

Right, the war, let's go. I think the term 'pre-emptive war' is fundamentally flawed as is the concept. However I would argue that certain 'anti-war' protestors are running the risk of completely devaluing any coherant and intellectual argument against war. Blindly attaching themselves to a morally easy cause is what the 'paedophile' protestors did in Portmouth and all they did was publically expose themselves as unthinking cretinous scum, who would happily lynch a doctor purely because she worked with children. Not enough people are thinking when they rant and rage against Bush and Blair - not enough people are even considering the questions posed by, for example, David Aaronovitch in this article (let alone attempting to answer them). I am not of the pro-war faction, I wanted somebody to find some way of averting it and working out the many legitimate issues that the UN has regarding Iraq (and, by the way, countless other countries - including America and Israel) I just, and forgive me for putting my viewpoint inelegantly, fucking wish that the level of debate in issues of huge importance such as this wasn't so fucking vapid and black and white. Come on, it doesn't take much to appreciate the complexity of the situation, we all know how terrible it must be for citizens of Iraq to live under sanctions AND Saddam's Hussein's regime. There are many tolerant and intelligent people who will automatically think, when someone unthinkingly says, 'Course, its all about oil', 'Why is it all about oil, what's the whole story?', rather than simply, 'yeah, of course it is'.

But in general, that's not the case - I watch people on television and they appear to be almost idolising Saddam Hussein. It's not right, it doesn't work and it doesn't help the anti-war cause. Billy Bragg standing up at the march and saying what's sad about the march was that it was 'natural labour supporters marching against a labour government'. No it wasn't, Bullshit - he was just simplifying the issue to fit his own mind set.

There will be a war, and I won't support the principle of the thing. But I will support some intellectual balance to the inevitable on-going debate.
And now its here - perhaps we should just live with it. Get it done, move on, rebuild. Blame the French. And then bomb North Korea. Then we'd really be in the shit.