The Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war has run about half its course. Judging by the dominant reaction of the British press, its sole function is to prove what we all know to be true: that the invasion was immoral and Tony Blair is to blame. The surfeit of moral certainty among the commentators is suspect; the zealous clarity of their moral waters needs muddying.
So said Nigel Biggar in the FT yesterday; then goes on to muddle the waters indeed. Nigel –according to his byline a “regius professor of moral and pastoral theology at the University of Oxford” — offers up a hogwash of unproven assumptions, half truths and insinuation, a veritable parade of Decent Left cliches. You could do a point by point rebuttal of it, but what’s the use? This sorry mess won’t convince anybody, though it might make the dwindling band of true believers momentarily feel good about themselves again. This is the best they can come up with to throw doubt on the simple truth that the War on Iraq was a disaster…
If you do want a proper rebuttal however, Don Paskini has it:
Wouldn’t it be useful if there were a website which had already anticipated terrible arguments like this, and mocked and rebutted them for us?
To test this out, I used the Decentpedia, which has an extensive catalogue of arguments made by supporters of the Iraq war.
Enjoy.