Ahmadinejad at Columbia University

mudsling3 said:

Mike, I no longer look at official "history" at face value now.

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I'm not sure what that means in the context of what I said:
- Pearl Harbor was a direct attack on the US.
- Kuwait was driving back an attacking force that had designs on taking over the region.
- The current war is a personal agenda.

this is directed at anyone but i thought this was a relevant take on in my backyard. check out the audio documentary "dirty harry". listened to it on my way to work this morning.
http://www.radioproject.org/

making contact is one of my favourite radio programs that i listen to, an am grateful that kdvs airs them.

they played part of this song which i'd never heard before. its quite good, the guy sounds like jonny cash, and is another song that would be great to listen to in bioshock 2 or fallout 3.
http://www.fortunecity.com/tinpan/parton/2/atom.html

That might a bit of over-simplification, Mike. Taking out Saddam (even if you totally throw out the WMD fiasco) had more benefit to the world than just a big middle finger from Dubya and Daddy Bush.

dteowner said:

That might a bit of over-simplification, Mike. Taking out Saddam (even if you totally throw out the WMD fiasco) had more benefit to the world than just a big middle finger from Dubya and Daddy Bush.

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Whatever the outcome, the lead-in doesn't show the same clear line of unavoidable conflict that the others do - and that should always be the burden of responsibility of proof for a leader.

While the WMD was the spoonful of sugar, I'd think removing a loon with bad history (see Kuwait) from power before he got well-and-truly crazy would come pretty close to the clear line you're looking for. The world-class FU was just gravy for Dubya.

dteowner said:

While the WMD was the spoonful of sugar, I'd think removing a loon with bad history (see Kuwait) from power before he got well-and-truly crazy would come pretty close to the clear line you're looking for. The world-class FU was just gravy for Dubya.

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If we went in for a quick hit, that would be one thing - but at the cost of thousands of civilian Iraqis, 4000 US soldiers, and hundreds of billions of $$ ... I just don't begin to see that a unilateral invasion based on 'probable cause' is justified.

Well, I remember WMD being our justification for invading Iraq, and it turns out there weren't any. Against all common sense, Saddam Hussein allowed thousands of Iraqi citizens to suffer by defying the UN for what amounts to no apparent reason other than he felt like it.

Who knew? Not us, that's for sure.

Before 9/11 there were plenty of people urging the Bush administration to do something about Saddam Hussein. Horror stories were pouring out of that place. Iraqis living over here were the most outspoken about it, assuring everyone who would listen that their people would jump at the chance to be out from under the thumb of Middle Eastern madness.

And they were completely wrong too.

I'm not completely convinced that there aren't some nasty weapons under a sand dune somewhere since it's not like the "bad guys" are going to notice our tanks and jets and decide to hang a billboard pointing to the stuff to help us out. But I'm perfectly willing to admit I expect the worst from Saddam lacking any evidence to the contrary.

txa1265 said:

If we went in for a quick hit, that would be one thing - but at the cost of thousands of civilian Iraqis, 4000 US soldiers, and hundreds of billions of $$ ... I just don't begin to see that a unilateral invasion based on 'probable cause' is justified.

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The quick hit would be frowned upon even more than what we ended up with--that would be called political assassination of a world leader and then Dubya would be in front of a war crimes council. And it would be justified to boot, unlike the misguided calls for that sort of silliness right now.

hopefully no one comes looking for wmd under our sand dunes then eh?

I'd say the vast majority of our "nasty in a crate" is public knowledge. I'll grant you a tinfoil hat moment and agree there's probably a few "deep dark double extra secret" programs that are off the books, but by and large I'd say the enterprising investigator (or shall we call him a UN investigator, just to tie it all back to topic) could gain access to most of our weapons and relevant records.