Stupid anti-Bush moral equivalency

Now I’m no friend of George W Bush. I carry no truck for his Christian conservatism, but the USA is not becoming a theocracy or even close. I don’t support the use of torture by any government. I believe there have been some ridiculous reductions in civil liberties in the USA, but regardless of that it is still fundamentally no less free than most other western liberal democracies. Bush’s record domestically in my book is that, while there are some positives in tax cuts, he has increased spending willy nilly and proven himself as much of an interventionist in some areas (education) as his predecessors. He is not a great President.
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On the international arena I support his attacks on Afghanistan. Afghanistan was the succour for Al Qaeda and itself was ruled by a brutal stoneage regime that was highly oppressive, and treated all citizens, particularly women and girls, in virtually Old Testament biblical fashion. While Afghanistan could be have been undertaken better, Bush was a liberator and should be applauded by all liberals for that.
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I supported the action against Iraq. It was justified for two reasons. Firstly, under international law Iraq had broken umpteen UN Security Council resolutions regarding inspections of its weapons facilities. This gave sufficient evidence, particularly given its previous nuclear and chemical weapons programmes (and use of the latter), that it was developing such weapons and would use them. The assurances of a dictatorship that there are no such weapons are as worthless as the piece of paper Chamberlain brought back from Munich. A nuclear armed Iraq would have changed the Middle East balance of power, encouraged Iran to do the same and threatened Israel. Iraq had been warned time and time again that action would follow words, so action was justified, after 11 years of breaches. Secondly, the Saddam regime was odious. It was murderous, barbaric and on its own back, was imperialistic. It started the war with Iran, regardless of US support at the time. Don’t forget the current US administration is not the Reagan administration operating in the Cold War. It also had attacked Kuwait and Israel, hardly a peace loving regime. It executed thousands of citizens every year for opposing the regime or for getting in the way of the Hussein mafia that ran the place. There was no moral justification for the Hussein regime to claim it had the protection of international law, as it was not interested in peace with other states and it treated its citizens as subjects.
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The overthrow of the Hussein regime is something to be celebrated, the commission of the occupation and institution of a democratic government has been a disaster. I could go on about how it could have been done better, and of course, the casualties since the coalition of the willing occupied Iraq. Few notice that the main source of deaths comes from Islamist insurgents, but apparently these are the fault of the USA, which should leave Iraq alone to be overrun by them.

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Beyond Iraq, Bush called North Korea, Iraq and Iran part of an axis of evil. He was wrong to consider them in a way that appeared that the three countries operated in concert, as they do not. However he is dead right. The Iranian theocracy is evil, it completely denies freedom of religion and freedom from religion, it denies liberal democracy and free speech, it engages in imprisonment, torture and execution of political prisoners, as well as executing teenagers for crimes such as having consensual sex with adult men. It is a sponsor for terrorism in Israel and the occupied territories, as well as Lebanon and Iraq. Have no mistake, an Iranian style regime would deny many fundamental freedoms and be a dark deathly oppressive life. North Korea is worse. Kim Jong Il runs and essentially owns a slave state. A state with internal passes, with citizens classified according to loyalty to the regime, and where entire families are punished for crimes against the state, including children. Torture and execution are a matter of course, and there is no freedom of speech of any kind. Absolute control of the media and speech Orwellian style is life in North Korea. It is the closest to hell on earth.
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So this is why I get absolutely incensed when otherwise reasonably intelligent people like Idiot Savant engage in the most stupid and despicable moral equivalency when criticising George W Bush.
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I agree that there should not be restrictions on freedom of speech if Bush visits New Zealand or restrictions on protest, as long as these do not threaten the President. I also believe any state visits should minimise restrictions on freedom of movement, consistent with maintaining adequate security. However to say Bush is “a man who by rights should be in a cell next to Saddam Hussein” is absurd. Bush’s greatest crime has been the use of torture and creeping restrictions on civil liberties. I would welcome the newly elected congress engaging in an inquiry about the use of torture and its use being terminated. However, Bush is not Saddam, Kim Jong Il or Ahmadinejad, not even close. He understands, more than most on the left, what the war against Islamist terror is about. It is not a clash of civilisations, because Islamist philosophy is not civilised - it is a war against people who want society to be a misogynistic stoneage theocracy. Bush is not the greatest defender against this threat, but his use of torture, while a graven and immoral mistake - does not justify him being seen as the likes of Hitler, Milosevic or Saddam.