Well, not so fast there, podner! There are variants:
“Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.”
~Richard Loft
“Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to stupidity.”
~Dean Funk
However, most search results give credit either to “Unknown”, “Anonymous” or… “Hanlon’s Razor.” So on balance, I think at least Google tilts toward Derleth here.
elucidator, I don’t do people’s research for them.
Then, Derleth, you have absolutely no justification for disputing quotations.
And its “podhuh”, not “podner”. Amarrilah, armadillah, podnuh.
Yankees. Sheeesh.
So just who the hell is Nick Diamos, anyway?
pod·ner - n: 1 One who podens 2 The results of a podening.
et: Old Lesser Tansanian podenurma - “to give [say] credit wrongly”
[sub]::looking:: Did he buy that?[/sub]
pod·ner - n: 1 One who podens 2 The results of a podening.
et: Old Lesser Tansanian podenurma - “to give [say] credit wrongly”
[sub]::looking:: Did he buy that?[/sub]
Tristan,
Last night on C-Span they had a debate on whether the war with Iraq was a good idea. Two argued pro, two con. Christopher Hitchens was one of the pros (and first to speak, I think). I only caught the end of his opening piece, but it sounded like he made a powerful argument. So did the others. Durig the first speech being made by the second con, C-Span lost the feed. Anyway, there video section is here. The debate was put on by the Los Angelos (sp?) Times–IIRC?? It hasn’t been posted yet, but hopefully it will.
Tristan,
Last night on C-Span they had a debate on whether the war with Iraq was a good idea. Two argued pro, two con. Christopher Hitchens was one of the pros (and first to speak, I think). I only caught the end of his opening piece, but it sounded like he made a powerful argument. So did the others. Durig the first speech being made by the second con, C-Span lost the feed. Anyway, there video section is here. The debate was put on by the Los Angelos (sp?) Times–IIRC?? It hasn’t been posted yet, but hopefully it will.
hamster - n: 1 Double posting, rat-humped overworked, rammlegrasted hummelmuffer
Won’t buy it, but I’ll damn sure steal it.
We’ll see, is all I can obviously say to that. As said, it would highly surprise me.
Unless, of course, France sold Iraq some second grade WMD’s that don’t really work, and don’t want Saddam to find out. 
Well, of course France is not alone in vetoing resolutions that don’t suit their interests. The US vetoed a resolution as recently as last December. And it has a significant history of vetoing UN resolutions dating back 4 decennia. It’s not like the US can really blame France for playing the same game.
If you ask me, the UN needs to get rid of the veto voting structure altogether. It gets shit from left and right for being ineffective: how the hell CAN they be when every member of the (very diverse) security council can shoot down a proposition?
Ask yourself this: is there any democracy in the world where the ratifying body (say, the Senate) isn’t functioning by majority rule (or in some cases, 2/3 majority)? A veto system is an archaic system.
Beagle, I would like to see a breakdown of all the countries that helped to arm Iraq. I am not doubting what you are saying, that Russia, China, and France were the top three, I just would like to see a factual basis to your assertion. The US definitely had a hand in Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons programs.
Colin Powell apparently brokered the sale of Italian Augusta helicopters to Iraq, something that came out of Iran-Contra, but that seems relatively minor.
http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin10.html
China did sell optic fiber technology to Iraq for their missile defense systems, but,ironically, that technology was sold to China by ATT under Clinton.
I hope I didn’t kill the thread. To revive it, I will return to the original question, which was “the real reason behind the Iraq war,” and I will state my belief, which is that it is war profiteering, pure and simple.