Its all very neat to say that the anti-war coalition ignored Saddam's crimes. I can't speak for everyone, but I certainly did not. This war should have been fought a long time ago, but now there are other complications.
Should something be done about Saddam? Yes.
Is it a reason to go to war? No.
Its not as simple as that, but I simply can not agree with this 'pre-emptive strike' rhetoric. A country should go to war when its own security is directly being threatened by the other; I still have yet to see any rhetoric to see how Saddam Hussein is a direct threat to the United States or the United Kingdom.
NORTH KOREA is another matter altogether. Now, THAT is a country that should be stopped before it is too late. Instead of this stalling, the 'coalition of the willing' should place their efforts there. The more we stall, the more pernicious it shall be for us in the future. The threat is there, not in Iraq.
It is not out of some pacifist nature that I object to this war, I object to it because it is wholly unecessary. Iraq is NOT a threat as long as Saddam Hussein knows that doing anything will get him killed. Well, I speak of this in the present tense, this rhetoric is now quite redundant at this present moment in time.
Who, may I ask, will stop North Korea? What I find distressing about this entire situation is that the real threat, the real danger, is being ignored. What, precisely, is being done about North Korea? Not half of what should be done, I can tell you.
The 'only' reason I can see, the only credible and positive reason for this war to be fought, is for the 'liberation' of the Iraqi people. How can I deny the benefits there? I do not. However, when placing it in the 'war equation', it is not as simple as that - it does not balance. We have lived perfectly well through humanitarian crisis after humanitarian crisis, what is going on in Africa comes to mind immediately (I know how Bono is particularly frustrated about that), and, more often than not, we have not seen it as a reason to do anything, let alone go for war.
Ant.