I aspire to an permanent state of smugness, but I occasionally find it uncomfortable being wise before the event. Following my last WMD ‘Blog posting, I flicked through my correspondence from around the time of the original one.

On 18Feb03, in an email to about a dozen fellow members of la Résistance, hiding in attics across Europe from the marching pro-Saddamites, I wrote the following:

Every shaky argument of the Right (as opposed to the Wrong) in support of the war against terrorism will be worried by sympathizers and appeasers of “Islamofascism”…

…The answer is simply to stop using dumb arguments. Blair got interesting when he made his speech de-emphasising all that WMD destruction stuff and bluntly comparing the numbers of rich white people with baby-slogan-banners protesting in London with the number of poor brown people who had died in Iraq. Let’s get utilitarian on their asses:

“Look, kids, it’s simple:The Cold War is over now. The arithmetic of badness is so much simpler: you don’t have to factor in politics any more. Despite lacking our fancy hardware, their bad guys kill and persecute more innocent human beings than our bad guys. We suggest you get on the right side of history now—while there’s still time.”

. Actually, that could be our own baby-slogan: “Berlinski’s Bullstoppers—On The Right Side of History Since 1993“.

Tony, why didn’t you listen to your heart? Why didn’t you listen to me?

Anyway, you’ve got to wonder how Saddam’s henchmen would have had the time or space to hide any WMD, what with all those corpses to get rid of. Rebels, women, children, babies, Kurds; now, at least, he and his posse can take time off to hang out in that missile-hardened recording studio with Osama and Elvis.

Of course, we could have given peace another chance.