I am in despair

Yes, Lucy, it was a redundant statement and i knew it as soon as I hit submit. I was hoping nobody would call me on it. Let’s just say he CITED a non-existent report.
Scylla, are you FER it or are you AGIN it? It’s kind of disingenuous to say that you support it but that you don’t want it. It’s a semantic nitpick at best.

And you really haven’t answered the questions about North Korea, et al. Why is Iraq number one on the hit list when they do not even break the top five on the danger list? North Korea, Iran, China, Pakistan and Lybia are all more worrisome than Saddam at the moment. (Pakistan because they have da Bomb and they think we’re a bunch of tools, Lybia because they run some of the world’s finest terrorism schools)
Shouldn’t we prioritize by the level of immediate danger to the US?

I think it’s fairly obvious that some folks are operating on “George said it, I believe it, that settles it.”

Stoid:

**

It’s no fun when you make it this easy.

Well, I’ll give it a try. If a country states they are going to do something, then they better be able to. In Iraq’s case, we know we can do it, and they are already in violation of UN resolutions.

North Korea - Realistically, what can we do? We can’t isolate them further unless we can talk China into cutting off trade. We really can’t go to war unless your willing to write off possibly millions of South Koreans.

Iran - IMO the best course with them is engagement, not isolation. From what I’ve read, the “middle class” & moderates want closer ties to the U.S.

China - Once again, what could we do. Taking them on would make WWII look like a warm up bout. Cutting off trade wouldn’t do any good and would probably be counterproductive. Their economy is already shifting toward free market. IMO (once again) just leave them alone and they will continue to shift more free market & hopefully, toward democracy.

Pakistan - IMO we never should have forgave them (or India) for developing nukes. It would have been real tough or impossible to go after Afganistan without their help though.

Lybia - I don’t know. Are they still big time in the terrorist game? Haven’t heard much from them in a while. If they are then maybe they should be next on the list.

So when someone says that Saddam is likely to do in the future what he has done in the past, this is “divination”. When you make up quotes and attribute them to others, this is “surmise”.

I am not sure of what your other point is. Are you in favor of war with North Korea?

Or are you against war with North Korea because they have the bomb? If so, why do you want to wait for Iraq to develop the bomb before we act?

Or are some people operating on “George said it, I am against it, that settles it”?

Regards,
Shodan

I am for assuring that Iraq does not and cannot posess weapons of mass destruction, and I support the the slow and deliberate escalation of efforts both diplomatic and military to ensure that goal is reached.

Ultimately, allowing him to operate unfettered is more dangerous and likely to cost more lives than ensuring the peace through temporary force. Hopefully though, it won’t come to that. Hopefully Saddam will acquiesce. If he doesn’t the cost of lives to force him to is on his shoulders, not ours.

That’s not a wish for war. It’s a wish for a safer world.

I don’t think ‘tail between his legs’ is his posture at all.

Yeah, he got smacked. But he’s still there, and still in power. He had terms of a cease-fire, and has refused to live up to them. Seems rather proud of it. I don’t think he believes we’ll do anything about it.

I don’t want a war. I want the arms inspectors to go in and do their jobs. If he lets them in, and doesn’t try to hide stuff from them, and the inspectors say “He’s not building weapons of mass destruction”, then I’ll be happy as a clam and ready to live in peace.

Otherwise, he gets his ass kicked.

As an old politician here used to say, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.”

Sure we all want a safer world. But it won’t come without a cost. I am not at all confident that our superscyllious friend accepts that.

Another saying, common in my business, is “Hope is not a strategy.”

Oh, you mean people die in war? You mean like my grandfather? Or my father’s brother? Or like my father almost did? Gee whiz. No, I didn’t understand that. Thank you so much for climbing up on your high horse and pontificating that fact sanctimoniously, you insufferable moron.

Stoid again:

**
One of the most stunning statements I’ve ever read here.

“That woman doesn’t need to worry about the serial rapist living next door. Because after that one time he raped her, he hasn’t raped her since.”

And it’s already been adequately pointed out to you how completely wrong you are on the “no beef with Israel” portion of your tripe. You’re at least partially correct - Saddam should have no beef with Israel. As should all of the other Jew-hating countries in the Middle East hell-bent on Israel’s destruction.

elucidator:

**

www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/decade/sect3.html

So, trust elucidator. Iraq is not a threat to the USA, because it hasn’t done anything to the USA yet. And it’s not a threat to the Middle East, particularly Israel, and the United States’ interests there, because it hasn’t done anything - well, in 11 years.

And on Sept. 10, 2001, several thousands of occupants of the World Trade Center were completely safe from having their lives snuffed out in a terrorist attack that brought the two towers down, because it had never been done before.

“[…]and Iraq has no real beef with Israel.”

Lord knows that wouldn’t be kosher.

Scylla please disabuse yourself of the notion that your family history and/or its suffering has the slightest bearing on the matter. A cancer victim does not become an oncologist.

Further, your moral sleight of hand of placing all responsibility on Saddam’s shoulders should he fail to accede to our demands is entirely too facile. Elvis point is no more sanctimonious than your claim to special expertise, and by no stretch makes him worthy of such a slur as you delivered. One had wished that you were getting beyond that sort of thing.

Elvis is neither sanctimonious or a moron. You are not a moron.

Here’s some evidence that lucwarm may be right:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/DailyNews/iraq_surveillance021112.html

Monitoring naval bases in Spain and Bahrain, I can see, as Saddam knows he’s likely to be attacked, and wants to get an idea of just how close the attack is.

But an embassy in Finland? The U.N. in NYC? Or the cemetary in the Phillipines where the U.S. Ambassador was to attend a Veteran’s Day Memorial service? These sound more like potential targets of terrorism.

Milo the quote you seem to be rebutting has to do with knowledge of what someone else is going to do. Short of psychic phenomena or voodoo, that is. You would rebut this with a list of assertions of weapons capabilities from the White House web site! Surely you understand that this is no more a rebuttal to my point that is Mrs. Bush’s grocery list. The question isn’t what or whether Goddam Hussein has weapons, the question is what will he do with them. For more than ten years, he has done nothing with them whatever. Yet Fearless Leader, and you, claim some special certainty, some prescience that he is just about to. He is a madman who cannot be deterred by the clear and obvious fact that an attack on America is suicide. And yet no attack has been made.

This is a contradiction that neither you, nor he, has addressed in any meaningful way, other than to hint darkly the he is somehow connected with the horror of 9/11. The utter lack of any such evidence does not faze him, his certainty surpasseth all understanding, and any need for facts.

Indeed, as recently reported, when the CIA reported this paucity of evidence, he instructed Rumsfeld to conduct another investigation. Presumably, this will have more agreeable results.

Then he has the temerity to flaunt as irrefutable evidence (“I don’t know what more proof you need”) a report that did not even exist! Not only are we lied to, we are lied to on the presumption that we are too stupid to know the difference! To my dismay, recent evidence would indicate that he was right.

If the case for imminent threat from Saddam bin Laden is so convincing, so irrefutable, why is it that lies and innuendo must be called upon to bolster it? We have also been presented with an expert witness as to the present state of nuclear arms development in Iraq from a man who has not set foot in that country in over seven years!

Boiled down, here it is: we’ve been had. Conned, cozened, bamboozled, they’re peeing on our shoes and telling us its raining. And it worked. Lord help us, it worked.

And so here we are. I truly believe that, barring a miracle, Fearless Leader will have his way. He has painted himself, and us, into a corner, nothing short of complete victory will suffice. I have little doubt of that, as well.

And now I must hope that it is so, that the war is swift, brutal and short. I must hope that this pampered and priveleged pissant who thinks himself a Leader of Men will triumph, and return to bask in the glory of a grateful nation.

I must hope that it is thier soldiers who suffer and die, thier children who are made orphans.

And I heartily detest the men who have forced such a choice on me.

Perhaps we should lay aside E Pluribus Unum, it is no longer as appropriate as Oderint dum Metuant: “Let them hate us, so long as they fear us.”

Perhaps we should; it captures the sentiment exactly, and it’s about fucking time.

Thanks Elucidator!

Uhhh guy? I think you’re thinking of Saudi, or maybe Iran. Down in the Emirates women drive, work at what they please, go to school, dress as they wish, etc etc. The women I know that live in the Emirates like the place. If you want to blast some place, pick Saudi.

Regards.

Testy

**
And there is one camp, as eloquated by you and Stoid, who say the fact that nothing’s been done in the past decade = no threat.

There is another camp that feels that means nothing, when Hussein has showed he is pursuing, building, and hiding WOMD, and has shown a propensity in the relatively recent past to use them.

That’s where the 9/11 connection comes in - that, in thread after thread, you seem unwilling or uncapable of grasping.

Love him, hate him or whatever, 9/11 clearly galvanized Bush. The point he’s made repeatedly since is to be preemptive against potential threats to America and American interests.

Given the choice of giving barbarians the benefit of the doubt and the chance of thousands of American civilians again dead in massive piles of rubble, Bush (and most others) have chosen not to give the barbarian the benefit of the doubt.

I’d like to see who’s on your list as a greater foreign threat to the USA and US interests with weapons of mass destruction than Saddam.

The Gulf War ended on promises by Saddam Hussein that he would do certain things. He never did.

The treaty that ended a war was broken - never, ever complied with. What does that mean to you, if anything?

Higher on my list? Howzabout Osama bin Forgotten? You remember him, don’t you? Fearless Leaders Number One Priority? Who he wouldn’t rest until he got. Have you heard the name pass his lips in what? weeks? months? The guy who actually was responsible for 9/11. But no matter, it worked, vast numbers of Americans believe that Goddam Hussein is somehow connected to 9/11, evidence and facts don’t enter into it.

He made unkept promises? Hell, who doesn’t. Nobody really cared for years. The promises were made to the UN, who were apparently quite content to let sleeping rabid dogs lie. Until the Man Who Fell Up decided that the situation was urgent, emergency, crisis. On Sept. 12 (“Because you don’t introduce a new product line in August”) our Wal-Mart Churchill stomped into the UN and started throwing our weight around. Remember the universal approval and applause? No? Perhaps you missed it? So did everyone else.

Ah, yes, the barbarians! Fits the new Imperial mood precisely. Them against us. All who threaten us, all who might threaten us.

We’ve been had, Milo, in your case willingly. Elmer Fudd has morphed into Winston Churchill, and we will have war.

The Kurds would probably disagree with you. So would the pilots Saddam has fired upon.

Are you that impervious to reality?

You were arguing that North Korea is a threat. Why? They haven’t nuked anyone yet, so nothing should be done, by your “logic”.

You seem almost deliberately obtuse. Is your hatred of Bush so deep that you are willing to reject reality to cling to it?

I believe our bargain-basement Paul Wellstone has forgotten about the unanimous resolution passed in the U.N. the other day.