The Moral Babarism of Our Great Leader

According to Ted Honderich:

No decent morality, no morality worth disputing with, could conclude that the reasons assembled for the Iraq war, that mess, plus this stuff about unintentional killing of innocents, could justify it. The morality of humanity condemns it. No decent morality, no morality above contempt, could justify our leaders and political parties.

Our leaders have been deficient in moral intelligence. The morality of humanity condemns them absolutely. It places them on a level with bin Laden. It brings them together with Sharon. It joins them to Saddam Hussein. Bush and Blair are greater contributors than they to the Iraq killings.

And the question of right and wrong now, of what to do now? It is not hard. It follows from what you have heard. Also from the photographs of naked men on leashes in the American prison in Baghdad, and the film of the savage beatings of young captives by British soliders.

This is moral barbarism, moral barbarism that trickles down from the leaders of two democracies. A rich and decent people can have a barbarian government. This is far larger than the fact that our illegal war has course been exactly a terrorist war -- it has had all the features of terrorism itself except for being larger-scale. It has been killing and maiming, for a political and social end, illegal, and prima facie wrong.