Mr Manjit Bhatia has lately become o­ne of the most prolific writers to malaysiakini, and there are times when his in-your-face style has been just the right dose of bitter medicine to counter the pro-government flu that some writers seem intent o­n spreading.

At other times, however, his brittle style is just that - lots of "boy-am-I-good-or-what" posturing without much substance.

It is the mark of a bankrupt argument when the writer spends more time shooting the messenger than effectively countering the message.

And that's exactly what Mr Manjit does in Rebuttal to pro-war hubris - his reply to an article by Strategic Analysis Malaysia chief analyst James Wong Wing o­n and his defence of the anti-war protests that have erupted around the world.

He quotes a question that Wong asked, and proceeds to criticise the question, calling it "ridiculous" and "a real sham".

And then he gleefully lobs the first load of 's-t' at Wong and the three favourite rogues for the anti-US crowd - Bush, Blair and Howard - describing them as "out of touch with reality".

Only then (after a totally irrelevant swipe at the fact that Malaysia's protest was held in a stadium) does he proceed, with a straight face, to insist that "none of us, not o­nce, was conscientiously marching to lend moral and political support to the Iraqi tyrant, whom we utterly detest, o­n whose despicable hands is the blood of some two million innocent people he has murdered".

He goes o­n to say: "Privately, we all think a war to oust him from power is too good for the mass murderer.... We want Saddam and members of his regime caught alive and brought before the International Criminal Court where they must be tried for war crimes and crimes again humanity."

How does Mr Manjit propose to release the Iraqi people from the shackles Saddam has put o­n them?

Does he propose that a delegation of international sheriffs travel to Baghdad to serve a summons o­n Saddam? ("Mr Saddam, you are required under terms of this warrant to appear before the International Criminal Court o­n such-and-such a date. Failure to do so will make you liable to arrest."

Mr Manjit goes o­n to say: "We marched not against a war against a brutal, murderous regime, but against a war that would kill hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children."

I don't know how you can differentiate a war against a murderous regime ("murderous" meaning someone who indulges in premeditated killing of people) from a war that would kill - hold o­n to your hats here! - "hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children."

Saddam has, by Mr Manjit's own account, already killed some two million people. He continues to kill more. And you are more concerned about the mere possibility of casualties a US-led war would inflict?

I'm not any kind of a military expert (and neither, I'm sure, is Mr Manjit), but I would be willing to lay a wager that a US-led attack would not lead to anywhere even remotely near "hundreds of thousands" of deaths.

He calls a potential US-led war as "immoral and illegal." By whose standards? By whose rules?

Predictably, Manjit refers to the US support for Iraq during the Iraq-Iran War as somehow justifying leaving Saddam alone now.

Things always change in international situations as they always do in our day-to-day lives. People change. Should we still react to changed people and changed situations the same way we always did?

Anyway, since Manjit insists it's the US who created Saddam in the first place, doesn't he think that it should also be the responsibility of the US to put him down? I mean, whoever commits the crime should do the time, right?

In my book, I have nothing but admiration for anyone who is willing to put the lives of their citizens o­n the line to remove a certified killer from power and stop his murderous reign.

I don't know about Wong, but I wouldn't mind seeing this "US militarist adventure" end up "defeating Iraq and liberating its people". Wouldn't Mr Manjit and his fellow demonstrators love to see the day that they too, can march in the streets of Baghdad, Riyadh, Damascus and Tehran?

Manjit writes: "...once Saddam is defeated...the rest of the world will return to its self-interested, utility-maximising complacency, while the oppressed Iraqis, and so many others like them elsewhere, will become mere abstractions again".

Maybe so, but at least many of them will not lose their lives. Your march, Mr Manjit, deny the oppressed people of Iraq their chance for freedom.

The fact that US and its allies are stepping in now, is better late than never. At least something is being done now. Apparently Mr Manjit would prefer the Iraqi people to continue getting oppressed and killed indefinitely.

It's easy, in democratic societies, to shout from the rooftops and march in the streets. After all, there are no tests for o­ne's biases or level of understanding about issues before o­ne is allowed to go out o­n the streets.

Maybe that's why the marchers don't offer solutions, just opposition, hiding under a cloak of moral indignation, to possible solutions.