As Iraq descends further into a quagmire of misery exacerbated – so a large majority of Iraqis believe – by coalition troops, Times columnist, blogger, and warmonger extraordinaire Oliver Kamm continues to focus on the issue of real importance: did I quote what he’d written to me in an email without his permission?

Following our last bout of correspondence, Kamm offered this rejoinder:

I note with complacence that on your blog you carefully omit a relevant point of information, without which a casual reader will be unable to work out what's going on. Between your first and second email to me, you published my reply elsewhere on the Internet without having sought my agreement and without even troubling to tell me you'd done so. As my point was that this was underhand as well as discourteous behaviour, I'm pleased to see from the artful construction of your account that you simultaneously acknowledge the point and confirm it. I try always to respond to inquirers, but there is a necessary assumption involved in my doing so that an interlocutor will understand the conventions of civil debate. Where this proves not to be true, I can only make a mental note of it for future reference.

Oliver Kamm

Careful readers of this email will of course notice the glaring absence of one significant word: “Iraq”. By my count, that makes this evasion number three.

(On a separate point, it is indeed true that I had cited Kamm’s first reply to me on a discussion forum elsewhere online, though whether Kamm was himself aware of this or merely pre-empting my publication of his words I had no idea, which is why I didn’t mention it. Nonetheless, it remains irrelevant. In his first email, Kamm writes that “There are many weightier issues than abusing the confidentiality of private correspondence, but that truism does not … absolve you from the conventions of common courtesy.” Of course, as I argued previously, exposing the falsehoods that support a prominent public commentator’s dismal case for continued conflict in Iraq, falsehoods which are likely to receive some attention and possibly even be swallowed by other members of the public, does exactly that – assuming I had given any indication that our correspondence would remain “private” at all, which I had not.)

I decided to write back:

a) Should I consider that reply confidential?

b) Are you ready to discuss the issues yet?

Kamm replied:

You should of course treat any private communication, from anyone, as private.
That is a standard part of civilised discussion. I merely pointed to the
fact that on your blog you had carefully excised a relevant point of
information,
thereby confirming my observation about your behaviour. As you are unfamiliar
with the conventions of civilised debate, and as I am disinclined to state
them for you, you may take it that I shall not be paying you the courtesy
of responding to any further emails. (As I've requested, if you do feel the
urge to write to me in future, please remind of this exchange early in your
message.)

And that, dear reader, is evasion number four. When he gets to one million, perhaps he should receive some kind of prize? I, for one, have little doubt he’ll get there – though perhaps not before the toll of the Iraqi dead does.

One other thing ...

I have just updated a former comment on Kamm's rather extraordinary misrepresentation of Noam Chomsky, which may be of interest to readers.

The post can be reached here.