As tyranny recedes in Iraq, let us today remember the gallant Lance Corporal Ian Malone, 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, of Ballyfermot, Dublin, killed in action last week.
He died in the cause of freedom; and this world is a better place because of the bravery of men like him.
So where now those who opposed the US/UK war for liberty in Iraq? Where now those writers against the war? Which of you scribes will present yourselves on the streets of Baghdad and declare: "I opposed your war for freedom"?
To be sure, I wasn't surprised to see Danny Morrison come out in support of the Ba'ath party. He has, after all, much experience in another party that has trouble telling right from wrong. But where now the rest of you? We have our heroes in all this. The flag of the Irish Guards was yesterday flying over Basra, its suburbs held by men of the Royal Irish Regiment. And the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen, have been solid, sound and mature; the Opposition contemptible.
People are right to hate war. It must always be a device of last resort. The knowledge of its awfulness, and of its ultimate inevitability if agreements are not honoured, should be the true deterrent against it occurring. For invariably, it's when tyrants believe that the consequences of their aggression will not be met by war that their aggressive appetites become insatiable. Thus Moloch slouches from corpse to corpse, devouring freedoms as he consumes lives, and is stopped only when enough free people decide to resist him by force of arms.
That's human nature. We are a violent species, usually restrained by taboo and socialisation and peer pressure. When those passive instruments fail to work, as they often do, then we call on the police officer, his truncheon and the prison cell.
And when even these fail, and criminals seize states and entire peoples, the only thing which prevents them behaving with international criminality is the rational fear of the consequences: war.
The Kaiser did not believe the United Kingdom would go to war for Belgium during the crisis of 1914, because the British said dialogue made more sense. And when aggressors hear the word "talks", they mobilise their troops. Had London promised war, peace would have been more certain.
Hitler similarly believed from 1936 onwards that the British wouldn't fight - and we know with what consequences. In 1950, the evil Kim Il Sung genuinely thought that the US would not fight for South Korea. In 1963, the sociopath Ho Chi Minh had come to the same conclusion about South Vietnam. They were both wrong. And the outcomes of the wars - both unspeakably wicked affairs - are less important than what led to them: the belief that aggression pays.
Saddam Hussein believed that the UN would not confront him for seizing Kuwait. Wrong. After its ignominious retreat from Mogadishu, Osama bin Laden believed that the US was a weak and failed entity he could attack without peril. Wrong. After 12 years ignoring and evading UN resolutions, Saddam believed the UN was not serious about disarming him. Right.
All those who gathered in Hillsborough the other day know that violence and the threat of it pay dividends. That's life. The IRA used its history of violence, and the threat of more bombs in London, to negotiate an extraordinarily generous deal five years ago. It is not, however, an electorally sustainable deal, as we shall discover next month; but in the meantime, by God, I bet George Bush enjoyed receiving a homily from Gerry Adams on the immorality of violence. (Yes, Gerry. No, Gerry. Sorry, Gerry. Won't do it again, Gerry.)
But there will be no return to IRA violence because September 11th changed the world. The balance of forces shifted, and so too did the perception of what may acceptably be done in a political cause. The world has changed, for ever. Are you out there beginning to understand that, finally?
The Americans have shown that with their war in Afghanistan, and their conquest of the Taliban there. They are doing so in Iraq today. For the US has rediscovered this central truth of human behaviour: violence works.
Of course, it's not fashionable to say this, especially among the readers of this newspaper, who simply think that war is wicked and we should oppose it at all times.
Take a tip. Get on a plane and head east. You'll pass a large tract of land made free by violence and war, emanating from Britain and the US. It's called the EU.
Later, you'll come to a tract of countries in which tyranny reigned for 45 years, and was kept at bay by the armed might of NATO. Without the US threat of war, Tupolev Bear and Backfire bombers would today be patrolling the Atlantic from their base at Shannon.
If you cannot wage war to defend freedom, then freedom is sooner or later inevitably forfeit. But military might alone is not sufficient; for democracy and the rule of law are the two other legs of freedom.
Iraq is closer to freedom today than ever in its dismal history. That freedom has been bought at a high price in Iraqi lives, to be sure; but the toll is less than that exacted each month in Saddam's Iraq. We in Ireland should be especially aware that it is a freedom paid for in the blood and the life and the hopes of, among others, Lance Corporal Ian Malone, 1st Battalion, Irish Guards, soldier of liberty: RIP.