Stupid Ursine Tricks

Over at "The Truth Laid Bear, " the baffled blogger poses this:

President Saddam -- Again?

December 14, 2003 08:36 AM

During the buildup to the war, and since, many who opposed the war declared it an "illegal" action and a violation of international law.

Now that he has been found to be alive, I'd ask this to those who considered this an illegitimate war: will you now stand up and demand that Hussein be placed back in power? He was, after all, the "legal" ruler of Iraq.

And if not, why not?

It is just this sort of false dichotomy that right of center types use in an attempt to ensnare those that oppose their worldviews.

We at pure bs prefer to take a different tact. Ask those who were pro-war what they would do when unabashed, unrepentant war hawks like Richard Perle admit that the invasion and subsequent occupation were illegal. But you jest, I hear you ask. Here is Perle in his own words as reported by UK Newspaper The Guardian:

In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing."

President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law.

But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable.

French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein".

Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of the Iraqi dictator since the end of the 1991 Gulf war....more

I refuse to link to TTLB, because of the absurdity of his(?) mode of questioning.

Beware of baffled bruins bearing bogus biddings.