McFly wrote: "Does the regime of a tyrannical dictator, having never received a popular mandate to govern and without any inclination to allow the citizens a say in their own destiny, really have any right to lord over a nation? "

McFly: the point is not that they [dictators] have some right to rule- everyone would agree witht he common sense that they have no right. I don't think anyone would claim the antithesis.

The point is, on the other hand, do we then have the right to wage war upon a people because their leader is not legitamate. Obviously, Saddam himself was not the immediate target of the vast majority the millions of tonnes of ordinance expended in the war in Iraq.

I think many would say that the appropriate metaphor here is raping the people in question to restore their chastity. Its an irrational and nonsnsical approach to the problem "Leader X is illegitamate". What makes Leder X illegitamate, after all, is the use of force to impose his will upon the people- regardless of the will of the people.

To a large degree, though, this argument stands as a value laden red herring for the real justification of this war. As I have pointed out before: the argument 'we should invade because leader X is a tyrant' is a purely values-based argument that's validity and appeal, in the end, boils down to what ethical/moral premises you accept. This is not to say that its relative- but it is to say that a roomfull of rational folks can disagree about about its truth/falsity until the end of time.

In general, I think wise folks understand that these are exactly the sort of reasons that one should NOT go to war for. You should be factually 100% objectively CERTAIN before you take lives, especially on the scale war involves.

However, as a tool of distraction, it is marvelous. All those responsible for this war have to do is to convince their followers to shift the debate into this swamp of non-reason, value and emotion and you can hide, forever, the fact that the original argument presented for this war was false: That saddam had WMD, that Iraq had ties with Al-Qaeda, and that Saddam was an immediate threat to the US and her allies. We therefore must invade*.

There was ample evidence, before the war, that this argument had false premises. There was ample argument that the conclusion did not follow. There was ample empirical evidence everywhere that we should not act as we did. There was ample data about the costs, and the differences between the real and the claimed costs. There was ample data about (shall I go on?).

All of this can be negated, and all reasonable blame and calls for accountability can be shouted down, if you 're-locate' the argument into value-laden passionate yelling debate.

But its a smoke screen

That, McFly, I think is where the left is coming from- NOT the legitimization of the rule of dictators, but questioning our moral grounds for making war on a people because their leader is a scum bag.

Davin L.

(*)I'm not arguing this obvious point, but here is some evidence to support the obvious for the reality-deniers in our midst:
cheney
bush
Briefing
Briefing
SOTU, Bush
Powell address to the UN
Bush
Bush
powell
Rumsfeld
And lets not forget, we revised the law of our land to meake this 'pre-emptive self defense war possible

To say this war was not initiated on the basis of pre-emptive self defense is on the same level as UFOlogy and Holocoaust denial.