NOT SIMPLE, SIMPLE MINDED

PhD toting lefty blogger Tim Dunlop obviously doesn't subscribe to the KISS rule, using way too many words to make the point (for the umpteenth time) John Howard's a liar:

The relevance of the Iraq war now goes way beyond the issue of the war itself. In fact, it always has. Given the way the case for invasion was prosecuted and the way in which the governments involved have responded over the last three-and-a-half years to the ever-deepening chaos we see there today, the issue of government accountability and how they keep we citizens informed has always been central.

Dunlop is also less than impressed with comments from Australian Defence Association executive director Neil James:

[James] was responding to criticisms [of Australia's involvement in Iraq] levelled by former SAS officer, Peter Tinley, and his first line of attack was personal:

"It grieves me to say this but Peter was just a major and is looking at it from a very narrow angle,” Mr James said.

Oh, yes. Everyone can feel your grief. And seriously, if the best counter you have to Tinley’s criticisms is that he ‘was just a major’ then it really says more about your arguments than it does about his.

Mr James then went on to make this remarkable claim:

But Mr James said Iraq was heading for a bloody civil war regardless of the invasion.

Oh, please. The reason we were given for the invasion was that Saddam had WMD and he was on the verge of using them against the US and its allies. In other words, he was pretty much an imminent threat. Now we are being fed a line that the mayhem unleashed in the wake of the invasion was going to happen anyway.

Dunlop had this to say when Tinley first went public with his criticisms of the Howard government's decision to involve Australia in Iraq:

Could there be a more devasting [sic] assessment from someone so intimately involved and so obviously dedicated to the military and to the defence of his country?:

So, Dunlop is very impressed with Tinley's assessment of Howard but scoffs at James's assessment of Tinley (and the inevitability of Iraq chaos). This despite the fact that James's military credentials are at least as impressive as Tinley's:

Neil James served in the Australian military for 31 years, 26 of them as an intelligence officer, and he retired last year at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Dunlop also ignores James's finding fault with Australian intelligence (click link immediately above):

The Australia Defence Association is backing the claims by Lieutenant Colonel Lance Collins, of a serious systemic problem in Australia's Defence Intelligence Organisation.

And the head of the Association, Neil James, says a Royal Commission will eventually be necessary to deal with what he says are failings and bias in the intelligence community.

James is an independent minded person, and certainly no Howard tool, who's calling it like he sees it. It's a shame Dunlop tries to smear him.

Dunlop's continual assertions that Howard lied us into Iraq ignore the report of the Inquiry into Australian Intelligence Agencies, the Iraq section summarized in a single sentence:

Prior to 19 March 2003, the only government in the world that claimed that Iraq was not working on, and did not have, biological and chemical weapons or prohibited missile systems was the Government of Saddam Hussein.

When Dunlop first took up blogging at news.com he got off to a pretty good start. He's now reverted to the same old Howard-hating shtick he offered up at Road to Surfdom (with a small group of Howard-hating clones taking his place). He really should update his news.com profile:

Single-minded hatred that sucks.

Majorly.