Professors of the Obvious

At some university conference a few years ago in Glasgow there was an hour long paper on the media and politics. One paper from a serious academic spent an hour proving that the Daily Mail and the Express were predominantly right wing newspapers. There were no questions asked at the end of the talk. The one on everyone's mind was surely, "Why did you bother with this?" but people must have been too polite. Similarly this report from the Pentagon, ". . .written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations.".

It says the war in Iraq was "a major debacle" and the outcome "is in doubt".

One thing about this whole tragic charade is that there can be no response from the war supporters about "Well in hindsight of course. . ." because it was all too obvious what was going to happen. Khwaga's defence of the war (see part 1 below) is that 'might is right'. But like the bloody Israeli 2006 fiasco in Lebanon, if the self-styled defenders of civilisation are hell bent on a civilising military crusade, at least win the moronic wars they set out to fight. Or else, the 'might is right' argument looks ridiculous empirically as well as conceptually. An obvious statement.