Free Republic

In the run-up to what looks likely to become known as the First Gulf War, American planners were haunted by a "nightmare scenario". That was, that Saddam Hussein would suddenly see sense and start acting in his own best interests. By simply withdrawing from Kuwait he could preserve his military strength, claim a moral victory and establish himself as the new Nasser, the champion of the Arab world. Similar concerns must now be troubling hawks in the Bush administration. Saddam has everything to gain, including life itself, from moving to pro-active co-operation with the weapons inspectors. But now, as 12...

I was standing by a swimming pool in Australia in 1993, entangled in a rapidly degenerating politico-philosophical argument, when my interlocutor saw the light. I was, she said, a humanist. I thought this was a nice thing to be (still do), but she emitted the word with anger and derision and took it to end the argument in her favour. I discovered that humanism is a term of heavy moral opprobrium in fashionable, post-modern, politically correct areas of the academy; a term of abuse that denotes someone like Winston in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four - someone who believes in a...