I realize that might sound snide - but I'm being completely sincere, I would love to hear it.
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Oh, the Taliban and their women-beating sticks had me more than convinced to invade them and "liberate" the people. I just wish we would have done it.
I want to go after Syria right now, just for the attitude of their foreign minister and ambassadors! And their brazen escalation of the conflict. They mean serious business.
Uday and Qusay And the whole Hussein brood were despicable, but in reality *all* dictators are so. By nature.
I would have rather seen the US intervene in *many* other areas of the world.
Something AlQuiada did that made my blood boil?
911.

Oh, Good start Dan though you do seem to hold yourself back just a trifle as to, say, when you were discussing American troops. I’ll be honest I don’t sense the passion in this post I do in your others. But, I’ll take what I can get <g>.

But this can be settled by the democratic process
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Are you so very sure?
I see a lot of dangerous subversion of the democratic process here in the US and around the world. What happens when we put in "democracies" in the middle east and they *elect* extremists? And they will.
Right now, they would elect Osama Bin Laden!
Here on the home front there is so much election fraud and tampering and gerrymandering and bribery and corruption, calling it a democratic process is ... well, being kind. And idealistic.

Yes I’m sure. I’m cynical but I’m not that far gone. We had a couple of close elections here -- close enough that in a less developed country we’d have riots and civil war between Red & Blue. Our process is working. Nothing goes unchallenged and with the next headline elections change. It’s messy, we don’t like it when the OTHER party gets into power, but it isn’t George Orwell, no matter what articles in The Nation say, lol. So yes, I’m sure. But I do accept that you aren’t.

There is a difference between guerilla and terrorist. There is a difference between unconventional tactics and the extreme forms of asymmetrical warfare we are seeing in many cases. All belief systems come from a “point of view” because of this all can argue their point from some form of logic (‘makes sense’ for child predators to use I-net chat rooms).

UBL doesn’t like Western influence. He was willing to orchestrate mass murder to frighten people out so he could overthrow a sitting government. The way you phrased that seemed to be in defense of those actions, a justification -- perhaps I’m reading them wrong? His goal is his own. I don’t like his goal. I think his goal is evil. Moral equivalency is an exercise used by pre-law students in critical thinking and philosophy classes, it is not the default position by which to view the world.

Remember Iran? Brutal dictator in the Shah. Police state, subjugation of his own people by violence. Under him oil flowed and relations were normalized. Then: The UBL of his day the Ayatollah comes along. Yeah! The horrible westerners are gone! Now we have a brutal dictator. A police state. Subjugation of his own people by violence. Oil flowing to China instead of US, normalized relations with this guy to include threat of nuclear proliferation.

Why on earth would we stand by and let this happen all over again? That would be naïve. However I would love to see Kansas corn farmer as rich as Saudi princes. I would love if we tracked money flowing from the Saudi princes to Whabbist schools or terror groups and then whacked them. What I don’t want is UBL to have an even bigger and better platform from which to spread jihad and say 'well from their point of view they don't like democratic process, free market economies, or Hollywood movies, so it's understandable.'

Dan weren’t you around for the 9/11 commission (he says kindly). It was an over reliance on electronic intelligence and a denigration of human intel that led to the current state affairs. Back in the 70’s we decided to take ‘the moral high ground’ (a high ground composed of sand which shifts to become whatever the one standing on it wants it to be) and said: no coerced interrogations. No dealing with criminals. Distance from dictators, ect. Here’s the problem: it didn't worked. Nothing else was working in Iraq so they brought it over from A-stan. Having said that I will repeat; it was silly, stupid, and a political nightmare as well as wrong to use it in such a mass fashion. I’m not for it.

Dan, I don’t know. How can you write that with a straight face? Didn’t I read somewhere that many of the Abu Ghraib prisoners who were degraded were *paid killers*? Some had actually been in the same facility under Saddam as part of the fedyheen training program? That must have been ironic. As for liberation; ask the Kurds. Ask the Shia who inhabit the south below the triangle of death. Part of the frustration with posting is people make such flat, broad unieqvicable statements and ignore nuance -- myself included.

I admit this irks me. I don’t believe we have ‘lost’ the war. I believe we are fighting it incorrectly, ineffectively, even at times incompetently, but I don’t think we’re losing it. I think we’re losing the propaganda war here at home. I think if the mechanic tells me it’ll take a week to fix my engine that I shouldn’t walk in on day 3 see my engine in pieces all over the ground and start screaming.

To be fair to you however ‘mission accomplished’ was a damn stupid political stunt. I was infantry in the Army (also later in the National Guard where I blared thrash metal and chucked grenades at babies while stalking rape victims) I sat through too many land warfare doctrine classes and assumed as Baghdad fell we’d be there about 5-8 active years and then seeing a winding down.

Rummy’s doctrine of a ‘leaner, more flexible, combined arms force, married to precision technology and electronic intelligence’ is damn stupid in a counter-insurgency campaign: ask Powell. Powell said if tactics dictate 3 American troops are needed use 6.

Dan. Let me be precise. I agree with all most all of your policy posts. I agree that Iraq was a 'wanted' war. We agree on many more things than we disagree on.

In fact the only reason I find myself complelled to argue with you has more to do with chat room format.

People make broad statements. Their typing between work and so are terse. People say things while forming arguments as if they weren't hotly contested but just matter of everyday fact. "Since Bush lied about the intelligence we all know this war is immoral." as example -- I'm not saying you said that I'm just using that as an example for a debated issue some people except as gospel and then form arguments from.

It goes back to the prism through which we view the world as I stated 100 posts or so ago.

I sincerely believe your prism comes from a good place. I'm a Lieberman democrat, you may be a little more Pelosi. I can't argue the 'logic' of facts with you because we're wearing different glasses.

I wished we'd taken Saddam out the way Clinton took Milosovich out. I hate Bush policies as a matter of course. All we really differ on is what being naive about the mechanics of warfighting look like.

Unless you enlist I doubt that will change. I'm okay knowing you are intelligent, thoughtful and mean well even if this cause you to use moral equivilancy arguments

Peace/

I agree completely. Paul.

I don't want to repeat the Iran mistake of trade the Shah for the Ayatollah by trading the House of Saud for UBL or Taliban-esques types however.

Why we aren't hitting the most obvious violaters or attempting to blackmail them in some way is behind me. I realize covert operations like that wouldn't be announced but there should be some hint of rumblings in the news if we were.

Remember when those long range missiles headed for Syria 'accidentally' blew up on the traintracks in N. Korea 3 hours after Lil Kim got off, last year?

Love to read a headline like: Saudi Prince implicated in support of Whabbist school dies of herion overdose. OR: Saudi prince implicated in global fincial network looses control of BMW on icy Swiss road with 3 blonde hookers.