No human being likes war in normal or ordinary circumstances when peace, freedom, security and justice prevail.

However, as human history has repeatedly shown, under certain extraordinary circumstances or abnormal conditions, waging war against tyranny is justified to prevent more lives to be lost under severe oppression and aggression.

I think this is the line of reasoning of both James Wong Wing o­n ( Time for Saddam to pay for his crimes ) and Dr Malik Hassan ( More Muslims will die if Saddam is not stopped: CAMU chief )

The world has been kind and magnanimous enough to give Saddam Hussein 12 long years of time to disarm after his aggression against Kuwait was defeated. But, again and again, he delays, deceives and manipulates the sympathy of the world for the ordinary Iraqis and small nation, by playing the cat-and-mouse and divide-and-rule games even until now.

There are still dangerous weapons of mass destruction, such as anthrax and Scud missiles which can deliver biological and chemical agents unaccounted for. We must not underestimate the lethality of these unconventional weapons, especially when these weapons are in the hands of an unstable, oppressive and aggressive regime that promote an jealous hatred ideology against its neighbours and even its own people and co-religionists.

Public calls have also been made by Arab states for Saddam Hussein to step down and go into exile to avert war, but the tyrant is still recalcitrant and defiant. Deterrence and containment have also been tried in the last 12 years but to no avail.

What else can the world do at this moment except to wage a short, sharp and awful war to topple the regime? Maintaining the status quo ad infinitum is effectively an act of irresponsibility.

If the United Nations is unable or unwilling to appreciate the pressing need for collective security in the Middle Eastern region, then it will certainly be swept into the limbo of history like its predecessor, the League of Nations.

However, I also hope that the invading forces would be self-restrained and discriminative enough in applying their firepower so as to minimise civilian casualties.