Gareth can't resist crowing about events in Baghdad. Can't blame him, though. I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of this sort of thing in days to come, including the gratuitous sore winner snipes at leftwards bloggers for being insufficiently joyous. In the course of saying he told us so, Gareth unearths this OzBlogger I'd not yet encountered and approvingly quotes these words:

This watershed this early in the Baghdad end-game means those of us who believed there would be a bloody and protracted finale to this bullshit war were wrong. Not wrong to fear it; but dead wrong to expect it. I don't know how other pessimists feel about this failure of prediction, but I was simpering with glee as I watched BBC footage of Saddam city residents ripping off Ba'ath Party office supplies and pelting Saddam's visage with shoes. When you fear the worst, it's good to be wrong.

I'll go along with that. I expected a Coalition victory from the start but was expecting it to be a lot harder-fought and bloody than it was. Bad enough as it was, of course, but let's be thankful it wasn't worse. It's nice to be proven wrong on that front. I'll also go along with something else he says in his post which Gareth neglects to mention:

I know why I opposed this war and I stand by it: I'm a bleeding heart worry-wart who gets pissed off watching people being bombed. Oh, yeah, and there was that whole "international law" thing. And hopefully, my merry band of doves will now buckle down to the campaign of keeping the liberators honest. Freedom and democracy, and using Iraqi oil revenues to rebuild Iraq, were the offers on the table, if memory serves. Those who supported the war might like to consider what they'll be doing to ensure things turn out the way they were presented in the brochure. Like I say, I know what I am; but if our warbuff brethren, having got their rolling victory, now lose interest in the fate of Iraq's people and retire to their buttgroove in front of Fox, there to wait numbly for the next episode of "America Kicks Ass!" - well, I don't think the dictionary has a word for what they are. As for the architects of Operation Iraqi Freedom themselves, if they don't come good on their promises, may they spend eternity speared daily on the Dark Lord's hard, scaly and behorned todger.

Welcome, Robert Weaver, to the wacky world of OzBlogdom. Have fun while you're here and enjoy the lack of war while it lasts.

posted by James Russell | 4:55 PM