What a lot of nonesense.
"The appalling treatment of a population by a brutal dictator should never be acceptable under any circumstances"
So the fact that we supported Saddam throughout the worst of his atrocities can happily be ignored - the fact that there are plenty of other evil dictators around the world can happily be ignored. How convenient.
"The unrest now is primarily a result of hard-core islamic extremists fuelled by hate-ridden mullahs who are on an ideological crusade against democracy."
Any actual evidence of this? Its far too easy to say that any Iraqi involved in unrest is a hard-core Islamic extremist. How about simply a person who doesn't like having his country run by a foreign power? There are plenty of Saddam's old forces purported to be involved in the unrest - whatever else they were, they weren't Islamic extremists.
"it has always been the Brits and the Yanks who have stood against tyranny while others have capitulated."
I assume that this is an attempt at humour? Do you really want a list of the tyrannies either imposed or supported by the US & the UK over the years and at the current time?
"The US is a large and complex country, a union of disparate social and economic groups that often don't agree."
So much like Iran, and virtually any other country, then.
"We certainly did assist Saddam during the 1980's. It was the correct thing to do at the time"
So when you say "The appalling treatment of a population by a brutal dictator should never be acceptable under any circumstances", you don't really mean it.
"What a number of posters here seem to fail to realise is that the international situation is fluid. Today's friend may indeed become tomorrow's enemy, but circumstances dictate a certain position at that particular point in time."
What you seem to fail to understand is that you began your diatribe with the words "The appalling treatment of a population by a brutal dictator should never be acceptable under any circumstances".
"The notion of a United States of Islam with huge resources and run by a totalitarian regime that uses extreme religious views of supremacy as a basic tenet should fill any intelligent person with horror."
The notion of a united states of Islam is a complete non-starter. There are many different strands of Islam - they are far from united.
"Islamic extremists view the West as evil, corrupt and weak. Every time we fail to act decisively and with resolve we strengthen that view"
So the best way to deal with Islamic extremists is to slaughter large numbers of Islamic people - yeah, that'll stop the extremists.
But good to see that you are justifying the attack on Saddam by saying that Islamic extremists need to dealt with strongly. Saddam's regime was a secular dictatorship. By removing him, it is more likely that a hard-line Islamic state will emerge - so, by your own "logic", the ousting of Saddam has been entirely counter-productive in your crusade against Islamic extremists.
"Unfortunately sanctions don't work. Libya has only shifted it's position because Gaddafi fianlly realised he would probably rather not be put in a position where he would have to answer to his own people"
So the fact that there were years of negotiation with Gadaffi over his weapons programmes, the fact that his resourse rich country was spiralling into catastrophic poverty due to sanctions played no part in his decision to shift his position? Strange, thats not what the foreign office negotiators said, but I'm sure that you know more about Gadaffi's motives than they do.
If you can explain how ousting Saddam has helped in the war against Islamic extremism then your pro-war views would gain more credence. At the moment you are saying that he was a nasty man so we were right to get rid of him, but its fine to support nasty men if its in your interests to do so - not exactly a rousing battle-cry.