But if these people are as "primitive" as Claymore thinks they are, mere decimating won't do much for purifying the human race.But if the Iraqis are "primitive" Claymore, what about those US allies in Saudi Arabia who readily apply the barbarities of Sharia law under a selective reading of the Quran? And who figured so largely in the assault on the twin towers (which is more than any Iraqis did, though maybe all primitive people look the same to you?)

DougR, can we take that "God help them" as an apology to CarolC after your previous gloating?

I've been a bit slow, I admit, but I'm beginning to see the analogy with Germany. Germany after WW1, that is, when it was subjected to the "justice" of the victors on a humiliating scale. Iraq is now one of the weakest nations in its region and vulnerable to several of them - Turkey, Syria and Iran in particular, not to mention Israel - and getting weaker all the time under sanctions and weapons inspections.

Yet poor old DougR just can't sleep easy until its people have been bombed into kingdom come by the most blatantly over-militarised nation on earth. He will say it is to "save" them, and that loss of their power stations and water-treatment plants is for their long-term good. He will have no conception of what a deal with Turkey would mean for Kurds who presently enjoy some degree of autonomy in northern Iraq, nor of many other side-effects of the war he wants. My first inclination is to think that the DougRs simply don't care, but I think more probably they just don't have the imagination to appreciate the misery that will be unleashed, for absolutely no reason.