David H.

What stops us from loving others as ourselves? The judgment in our hearts. We cannot love what we stand in judgment over. To the extent that we stand in judgment over ourselves or over humanity, we find humanity unlovable. That is the meat of the matter. That, in fact, is why "The Law is no remedy for sin and the harder we try to keep the Law the worse it gets." St. Worm is right. That is why judgment must be God's providence. Only he can handle it and still love. --David

We may not change the world here today, but we are both better armed for the future after this. Thanks, David, and have a blessed day. t. Thanks to you, too, Ted. I appreciated the civil exchange of thoughts. --David

A stupid game on Saddam's part, to be sure; but it adds up. After the invasion, his closest advisors told the U.S. that Saddam never believed the U.S. would actually start a war. He wasn't the smoothest cue ball on the table. And he had to think longer-term than the period of fly-overs by U.S. jets. At any rate, my only real point in explaining the shell game was to say that we were wrong in thinking he must be putting up all the blocks on inspectors to hide something he had. It explains why he would have done that if he had nothing to hide. It wouldn't be the most likely explanation for his actions, except that we got there and found out he didn't have much to hide. It turns out there was an explanation for his actions that didn't match our assumptions -- unless of course, you're right that all the weapons were sneaked out of the country just ahead of our invasion. You are right about many trucks crossing the border, but I never heard how sound those reports were. If they did slip across the border, shame on Bush for letting something so important slip by right under his nose. Remind you of anything ... like maybe Tora Bora. And, in that case, maybe it is Bush covering up his own error by not saying they slipped across the border, thinking it's easier to say they weren't there than that it was the second huge thing he let slip by. I'm not against this explanation of why nothing was in Iraq; but I don't think it helps Bush's case any. All the more reason to have a Democratic congress so we can start investigating those things to find out what did happen. The Republicans sure aren't going to tell us. We should have had MUCH on the ground and in the air to watch for that and satelites trained to watch day and night because the president himself told us it was possible they would slip into enemy hands and that that would be the worst thing that could happen. I agree that the U.N. was authorizing tougher and tougher language right up to the vote, and that is exactly why we should have staid the U.N. route while we focused our military efforts on Afghanistan and our rebuilding efforts. The U.N. was starting to get tougher and really annoyed with Saddam, so I think it would have taken less than a year for the U.N. to get tight enough around Saddam that he would either cave or they would support a war to oust him, and then the U.S/ would not be taking all the political repercussions and would have had more help, especially in rebuilding, and full legitimacy in our efforts because we would simply be one of the forces in a U.N. coalition, albeit by far the biggest. Things were starting to go better in the U.N., and we should have staid that path. I don't think the Dems baited and switched on Bush. That's a little too cynical -- that they would launch a war just to score poltical points. I think when the WMD didn't show up, they knew they could hang it around his neck so that it didn't go on theirs. It also hung more appropriately because it is not really the job of Congress to know intelligence information. That is primarily a function of the executive branch, and they were trusting what they got from the executive branch. Nevertheless, they should have seen the holes in the evidence if I could. So, when the WMD weren't there, they did all they could to make sure it went on Bush. Again, I agree there was resolution after resolution getting tougher on Saddam, but NEVER any voice of support for war, except maybe from the U.K. and Spain. Even their support of war was less than enthusiastic. So, we should have kept pushing for tougher resolutions because things were moving in the right direction until we insisted war was the only option and made it pretty clear we were going with or without their support. In that case, why should they support it? You're right about Russia, France, and Germany. I still wonder why Bush is hiding what they were up to. I'm sure there is more than we know, and I think Bush sometimes is a little too much of a gentleman when it comes to not saying bad things about others. It's his family's way. It's that kind of not saying anything bad and showing a little too much loyalty that caused him to stick by Tenant too long as head of the CIA. As for Afghanistan, I think it was a clear-cut right to go to war, and the world was fully behind us. With all of the resources we've put in Iraq over there, instead, we could find every opium field and remove it and control every warlord with a large presence on our part. It wouldn't help us get bin Laden; he was already a lost cause because we cannot go into Pakistan to get him. I think you're equating too much of what I'm saying we needed to do in Afghanistan with Osama bin Laden. I fault Bush big time for Tora Bora because I knew we were wrong on the very first day to take that path. Trusting the job to warlords who are easy for millionaires to pay off was a clear don't do. I'm thinking of what we needed to accomplish with the Taliban and warlords once Osama was a lost cause. I agree completely that we cannot invade Pakistan. The last thing we need is a third all-out war, and it would disgrace Musharaf who has taken considerable risk that has nearly cost him his life several times. Once bin Laden made it there, our only options are good intelligence and a surgical strike to nail him when we find him. The Taliban, as it turns out, were not nearly subdued enough. We're STILL fighting them, and that should have been wrapped up within the first year or two. But it would take A LOT more troops to do it because it takes a big occupying presence on the ground to keep the warlords and the Taliban out of action until they become irrelevant. I'm mostly talking, however, about the resources we are pouring into rebuilding Iraq. We could have done a lot of rebuilding in Afghanistan, repairing damage by the Soviets and many others to where the people would have a very positive feeling about us. I think it would have created a lot of goodwill. Even now, the Afghan feelings do not appear in the press to be as hostile toward us as it in Iraq. In a country of warlords, what's one more war? By being the biggest warlord and the most benevolent, we might have succeeded in ending the hold of warlords over the populace. We'd have to hold the ground for several years until the Afghan army was sufficient to keep the warlords endlessly down. Want to know another little secret. Afghanistan is a NATO operation because our troops are way overstressed holding down to major wars at the same time. We ARE stretched too thin for our own good. So, we were desparate to get NATO to take over in Afghanistan so our troops could start getting a tiny bit of R&R. I hear in Hawaii how reluctant they are to return for another tour of duty overseas. You hear it in the voices of individuals when they tell you they're going back. If we weren't in Iraq, we wouldn't have to rely on NATO, which is exactly what I'm saying has allowed the Taliban resurgence. We are spread too thin, so we are doing neither job well. Our troops are doing a great job, but they are way overburdened. I also think Iran was a far bigger threat to us than Iraq. You, or whoever said it a couple days ago, are likely right that controlling Iraq may have helped us put the squeeze on Iran; but so far that doesn't seem to be working out too well. Anyway, I probably better try to curb myself on this topic form here on because I'm spending way too much time on it, and we're not going to change the world here anyway. Blessings, David

And who would he trust on that? The U.S., who hated his guts with a passion (and deservedly so, just to be clear). Does Saddam strike you as the kind of man who trusts anyone, more or less his enemy? I don't think so. And who would take his word on it if he said privately, as he did publicaly, "I don't have them, but I cannot let Iran know that." Would he trust the U.N. inspectors to come in and verify that he didn't have them and then trust that the U.N. would secretly tell the U.S. so that we would know we didn't need to go to war, while allowing him to keep the illusion publicly that he might still have them. I think the first thoughts in Saddam's mind would be, I let the U.S. know, and they'll let Iran know because they hate us both and would love to see us go at each other's throats. So, Saddam was playing an impossible game. I'm not suggesting any sympathy for him at all. My only point is that the shell game was not to hide weapons that existed but simply to keep everyone guessing in order to keep Iran guessing. Saddam knew the perfect Christmas present for the U.S. would be to get Iran and Iraq to fight each other. That's right. It was an impossible game for him to play, but with Iran ready to kill him the second they saw his underbelly, what else was he to do? He created the situation, so I have no sympathy for him at all. Again, my only point is that there were no WMD of significance remaining. That's not what the shell game was about. If there were WMD, the Bush administration would have spent the last campaign in which they lost miserably over this very issue, trumpeting all the proof of WMD they could marshal, which should be a snap once we had control of the country and could go wherever we pleased. And, if WMD were transported into Syria under Bush's nose, all the more reason to light a fire under Bush and axe Rumsfeld for allowing it to happen. According to Bush, the whole reason we had to go to war was not because Saddam could launch chemical weapons at us but because he could get them into the hands of our enemies. So, if the Syria connection is true, then the worst scenario Bush promised happened precisely because of our impending war on Iraq; and Bush should have watched the roads carefully enough to make sure it didn't. It's not like you can sneak those kinds of missiles off in a briefcase over the mountains. They have to go by road in big trucks or across fairly flat, open, sandy areas. Don't know where you get that notion. The U.N. voted against war in Iraq, that's why the U.S. "went it alone." The entire world, except Britain and a handful of others stood against us. Some of those who joined us appeared to do so reluctantly because they wanted to be good allies, not because they were for this war. But the word, as a whole, via the U.N., voted against the war. Remember how discouraged Colin Powell was about the outcome. It was not what he had hoped for. I agree. So, the Dems are not really sitting any prettier than Bush, EXCEPT that they are not in charge of running the war and can blame him, if they choose, for how long it is taking. Rumsfeld, who is our real subject here, told Congress the Iraqi's would welcome us with open arms as liberators. Rumsfeld was gravely mistaken. A minority of Iraqis greeted us that way, but the majority gave us the cold shoulder or worse. I doubt they thought Bush was bluffing, but what do you mean they "wussed out"? They never indicated they were for war in the first place. I don't know what U.N. talks you were watching, but the ones I was watching, Ted, and the speeches I was hearing from Coffee Anon prior to the war were almost all against the war and in favor of endless sanctions. I'm not saying the U.N. was right not to enforce their sanctions more strongly. I'm saying, if we're a nation of law, then we have to live by law; and the U.S. does not have a right under international law to decide unilaterally that it is going to enforce U.N.sanctions for the U.N. just because we know best. If you mean the U.N. was a wuss on dealing with Saddam all along, I agree completely. That being the case, my approach would be to push the U.N. (by non-verbal means in addition to verbal means) to either get serious about enforcing the sanctions, or the U.S. will pull out of patrolling Iraq completely. I don't think many Arab nations would have wanted to see Saddam given a free hand all over again. Remember, it was Arabs Saddam was attacking, not the U.S. We were THEIR allies, not the other way around (but with our own long-term interests also in mind.) We needed to put a lot more pressure by legitimate means on the U.N. to get serious; and we have ways of doing that. Your words are exactly what I said when Bush folded at the end of Gulf War I and didn't take out Saddam. I know why he did it ... because he knew the getting Saddam would lead to the present mess. But I also knew we would only wind up with that mess down the road anyway; and history proves that right. I doubt the situation would have grown much worse, had we continued to rely on weapons inspections because it appears the inspections were fairly successful in curbing him. Eventually, we may have had to deal with him, but he wouldn't have been any stronger than he was when we went to war. But the situation in Afghanistan would have been far better with all those resources sent that way. You or someone else pointed out that it would be a mess for many reasons, and I suppose those reasons are right, being first-hand observations. Even so, who cannot believe it would have been a lot better than it is now? Why are we even bothering to continue right now if pumping more resources into Afghanistan is going to make no difference? We might as well give up and go home if that is true. I think we would have had a much better situation in Afghanistan today and when we turned to Saddam, the world would see that... 1) we can do the job quickly with incredible resources; 2) that we don't leave the country devastated but leave it better than it ever was, 3) that we don't remain around as occupying forces; 4) that it's not about oil because there was no oil in Afghanistan, 5) that we waited until Saddam gave us a legitimate reason under international law to go in or until we could pressure the U.N. to stiffen its spine with respect to its own sanctions, 6) that our own nation remained solidly united behind the effort and suffered very little because of it. We would have had a strong, strong hand, regardless of what problems remained in Afghanistan. That's a good question and one I asked a lot as things dragged out with the U.N. under Clinton. I think Clinton should have taken numerous steps to press (by legal diplomatic means) the U.N. to tougher action beyond endlessly arguing the point. And I think George Bush should have given the ultimatum above as the last straw when he inherited the problem that Clinton inherited from Bush I. "We'll pull out, and then look at the mess you Arabs will have to deal with." If we had to follow through on that threat and drop our fly-overs, Saddam would have eventually overplayed his hand anyway, and the Arabs would beg for us to return. But I don't think it would have ever gotten as far as our pulling out. Few non-Iraqi Arabs would want that. The rest of the U.N. wanted to have its cake and eat it too. Once they could no longer play that game, the U.N. wouldn't want to have to occupy Iraq with its own forces. And they all knew Saddam was a rogue that had to be watched and that he only complied with U.N. inspections to the extent that he did because of the U.S. threat. No they didn't. I'm surprised you would say that. Most nations at the U.N. stated that the evidence Colin Powell presented proved nothing, and most nations in the U.N. said they believed the inspections were successful. Indeed. No doubt about it. And we are where we are, which is having much of the world hate us more than they did before and less willing to work with us on the war on terror. Because we were so wrong in our military information about Saddam, we have lost all credibility for any future claims on others like Iran. The world is not going to dismiss our errors as easily as some here are willing to gloss over them. For the first time we have ally nations looking seriously at trying our people for war crimes. We don't need that. What we accomplished in Iraq has done us no good. No Arab ally is thanking us for it either. We were not at risk from Saddam because he had no WMD. To be sure, he's out of office, but that's his problem. I don't even hear the people of Iraq thanking us. Even the leaders who have benefited most from our being there seem to speak only critically of us. So, who cares that we got him out of power? It has made no difference in my life except that it has put our nation back into deficit spending, which could have serious economic repercussions. If the Iraqis would rather that we hadn't come, they could live with Saddam as far as I'm concerned. They are the ones who suffered under him, not me, and they seem a rather thankless lot right now, which is no surprise to me. I have no fear at all that Saddam had any weapons that would ever do me harm and no interest in helping people rid themselves of a despot when they are only critical of us afterward. Contrary to what Justin says, I'm all for helping people who want and deserve our help. The U.N. inspections actually were working, and we have made ourselves as disrespected as we have been since Vietnam. Not where I want our country to be just so we can put a bandit away. --David

It's all about operating under the law, instead of above the law, Justin, my friend. The fact that the U.N. is a mess doesn't make it any more right for us to take things into our own hands, while using their sanctions to do it, than we, as U.S. citizens, are right to take the law into our own hands here in the U.S. just because we think Congress is a mess. There are a lot of stupid idiots in the U.N. just like there are a lot of stupid idiots in Congress. But, in that case, it was GB1 who was the bigger stupid idiot to have put our treaty with Saddam in the hands of the U.N. in the first place. However, we fought the First Gulf War with a huge coalition of countries, so we didn't have much choice. It wasn't just OUR war. Since Saddam's treaty is with the U.N., not the U.S., it is in the U.N.'s province to be the one to enforce its own laws, not ours, especially when they tell us to stay out of it. It's about working within international laws and treaties and not acting like you're above them or skirting them under false pretenses just because you don't like the way the U.N. is enforcing its own treaties. Don't make silly presumptions about me, or I'll assume you're young. Saddam is a volcanic tumor on the nose of life, and I hope he dies soon. I wanted GB1 to take him out the first time when we were in a legitimate war so the nose cancer wouldn't return later. I'm only stating why Saddam was pretending to play shell games with the inspectors, not stating that it was the right thing to do. My point was that he was NOT doing it because he still HAD WMD. He was doing it because he had to keep his enemies guessing whether or not he still had WMD. --David

Prior to the war, I wondered the same thing. After we gained control someone came up with the following analysis, which I thought to be right on in its simplicity; yet it had never occurred to me: Saddam had to toy with inspectors, had to feint left and dodge right. He had to maintain the illusion that he still had chemical weapons while appearing to comply enough with the U.N. to keep the U.S. at bay. It was a shell game without the ball. The use of those weapons against Iran was the only thing that saved his hide in his war with Iran. Without them, Iran would have pulverized him, but with them Iran backed down. It would be get-even time on a grand scale if Iran ever sniffed out that Saddam no longer had those weapons -- knew that he had be defanged by the U.N. Saddam actually believed he was playing the game close enough to the line that the U.S. would not attack. He believed the U.S. was bluffing, so he continued with his dodging. --David

I don't recall anywhere that Jesus called us as individuals to go out and right the world's wrongs with an army. Nor do I believe we can right the world's wrongs that way. We create as much trouble as we bring good. There is a time an place. But, if I followed your logic, I would be endlessly sending the U.S. after one despot and then another. I don't recall where Jesus said, "Go, kill the evil ones wherever you can find them in the world. Eradicate evil by killing the evil people." When someone picks a fight with our nation, our president has an obligation to use the military to defend the people of this nation. When someone picks a fight with a good ally, our president has a bond with that nation from the past to fulfill in standing by them and offerring to join the battle if they want our help. When someone picks a fight with a nation that is not our ally and that nation comes to us for support, we have to WEIGH wether or not the bridge we build by giving our own blood and treasure will be worth the very real cost that it will bring to people in our country who lose those they love. But IN THIS BATTLE, no one attacked us. No one attacked our enemy. And NO ONE asked us to enter the fray. We started the fray on false pretenses. We've overstepped all decency. But don't talk to me about selfishness. All three of the above apply and may be legitimate reasons for a president to call our troops to action. We, nevertheless, need to get over our Christ complex and stop thinking we have either the right or the ability to right all the world's wrongs with our military, especially when NO ONE has asked us into the fray and NO ONE has attacked us. There are millions sufferring all over the world, and sometimes our battles are what created their suffering. So far, I don't see that sufferring is any less in Iraq now that we are there. We have only managed to bring some of the suffering home with us. Here in Hawaii, the news is what troops locally died that day. The troops that are over there are suffering. Their families are suffering, especially when they don't come back. The Iraqi people are suffering, especially when their family members die in the crossfire. Trust me, NO ONE has been relieved of suffering there. And, while you can say it is going to change for the better, we do not have any guarantees of our success. We may have created a situation that remains in civil war and turmoil for the next fifty years. Hmm. Fight for Christ? So, we need to be good stewards of Christ and introduce people to Him with our army and airforce? Here's a bullet for Jesus. He loves you, man. And here's some Holy Spirit cannon fire. Fighting for Christ is what the Crusades were about. It's what people thought they were doing in Ireland. Christ's sword that protrudes from his mouth is the sword of truth. His words the proceed from his mouth are a sword that will slay his enemies. So, while his enemies slaughter each other with blood their horses bridles, that is the path of Satan. Christ will come and his truth alone will lay end to his enemies. Will it knock them all dead? The Bible doesn't say how his truth will end his enemies. It could even be love: After the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was speaking about making friends with people in the south. One woman came up to him and said, "How can you say that after they have brought us so much death. We should put an end to our enemies." "Madame," said Lincoln, "Do I not put an end to my enemy when I make him my friend?" (paraphrased from memory) Blessed are the peacemakers. There is a time for war and a time for peace, but not all times declared for war are the right times. --David

All of that may be true, except your last line, of course. It's not about whether or not the U.N. is effective. It's about law. The U.S. CHOSE to settle the Persian Gulf War through the U.N. because it was a war fought by essentially a U.N. coallition of several nations. It wasn't a NATO war, and it wasn't a U.S. war, though we played the principal role. It was not OUR war in the first place, but a war fought by many nations for the sake of Kuwait and to curb Saddam. SO, we drew up the terms of surrender for Saddam through the U.N. The sanctions placed on Saddam were all U.N. sanctions. That means, by law, it is the providence of the U.N. to decide how or whether it will enforce ITS OWN sanctions, not the U.S. The U.N. was never created to be the world police. It was created to be an international diplomatic body through which nations would have a forum to communicate with each other and to resolve differences. It was never created to have its own military, though people who see it as being the world police have moved it in that direction. It is a place for international diplomacy that the U.S., U.K. and France created by broadening their own League of Nations. I suppose you are right that the nations of the world, which includes us, are collectively a mob. So, the last war had nothing to do with whether the U.N. is effective. If the U.S. wanted to go to war against Saddam, it could not use U.N. the breakng of U.N. sanctions as its excuse because the U.S. is not the police force fo the U.N. The U.N. is a diplocmatic body of sovereign nations that must decide for themselves how they want to enforce their own sanctions. That means the U.S. needed its own independent reasons for going to war. So, George Bush thought he had them -- WMD and Al Qaeda. He was wrong because he was to quick to see what he wanted to see in the evidence presented to him. So, the U.S. had not independent reasons for launching a war of its own and no right to launch a war unilaterally on behalf of the U.N. The U.N. must vote for itself whether it wants to launch a war of nations against Saddam. And, if it doesn't, that's tough. It's THEIR sanctions because WE made it that way. The naive person is the one who thinks we can call ourselves "a nation of law" and then act in lawless ways just because we want to. I have no problem with the U.S. staying out of U.N. affairs. In fact, that is exactly the point. It should have stayed out of this one. It could have told the U.N., if you don't do something about Saddam breaking your sanctions, we're going to quit policing them with fly-overs. Then, we'd have to do that, of course. But we cannot MAKE a league of sovereign nations do our bidding. That's called despotism. We're biggest, so the rest of you will DO AS WE SAY! So, take the U.N. out of it, and you cannot fall back on U.N. sanctions as your justification for war. The U.N. is nothing to you, so what do you care if Saddam breaks their sanctions, and what business is it of ours to enforce THEIR sanctions when they dont' want us to. We always think WE are the cops of this world. Without the U.N.'s approval, George Bush had only WMD and Al Qaeda to fall back on as his reasons for a war he wanted to have anyway ... to clean up his father's own failed business. Our allies didn't sell out. They never BOUGHT IN! The fact that they are allies does not mean they are obligated to support every notion that falls into the head of one of our presidents. It's not as if the U.S. was under attack by Saddam. It was not. Had we been under attack, our allies would have been there (see Afghanistan for details). But we weren't. They had no reason to buy in to our world-cop mentality. It's really odd that you say, "We've got Russia and China that have no respect for international law and exploit the UN for personal gain." Then you suggest we do the same by ignoring international law ourselves and exploiting U.N. sanctions as an excuse to have the war with Saddam we want to have. They were U.N. sanctions. Law makes it the U.N.'s perogative to decide how they'll be enforced. The war in Iraq was not about Saddam lighting up our airplanes with radar. It was about creating a democratic foothold in the Middle East. It was about manipulating the formation of nations in the Middle East to create a balance of powers in that region that we think is more favorable to our interests. What we did was step outside of international law, and act on own. You cannot enforce internatinion law by operating outside of it. Who is the naive one here? That's right. It doesn't. Who appointed us sheriff of the world? If the world doesn't want us playing Lone Ranger, why don't we simply stop playing??? Then we could save those billions of dollars you're talking about. When did it become our nation's job to right all the wrongs of the world with military power? Did God command King Solomon to use his power to right the wrongs of Babylon. Solomon played his own game for the lands he wanted; but he didn't use his military to Go down to central Africa and try to right whatever tribal wars were happening there. And he told us that the best way to confront evil in the world was with our great military? So, we're to be forgiving of our enemies, but go drop bombs on the heads of people who are someone else's enemies??? You are right that God told us to confront evil in ourselves. I don't recall him telling us to confront evil in other people. Did Jesus go beat up the demon possessed? So, why do we bring physical violence against nations that seem possessed by evil WHEN THOSE NATIONS ARE NOT BOTHERING US? Self-defense is one thing. Conquering of evil by beating it up wherever we find it only sows the sees of greater evil. I don't think Jesus told the United States to go fight wars on other people's behalf when the other people themselves do not even want our intervention. What arrogance! And that's why we NEED to be humbled. That's what we are alright. That's what George Bush has turned us into, and that's why we NEED to be humbled. The world doesn't need to be run like the Wild, Wild West was run. There is a reason they called the "kick-butt" law of the Wild West "wild." It's untamed. It's unlaw. While the West was being wild, cities like Baltimore and Charlotte, N.C., were running as farily civilized places that operated under law and not on who was the biggest kick-butt in town. What George Bush has promoted is gun-slinger diplomacy. It operates outside of international law, except when it can use international law to its own advantage. It can do so because we're the biggest gun-slinger in town. It may hate us because we are strong. The world has plenty of reason to fear the strong, given its history where every strongman or strong nation eventually reaches for empire. I'm not saying we're quite that bad, but when we operate like George Bush we give the world plenty of reason to believe we are. Is it really our God-appointed calling to be the world's biggest gun-slinger and ride the Wild West into submission? The real West was our. It was ours to ride into submission. But now we're riding in on the East, and it isn't ours in the first place. Maybe we should try Jesus Christ and missionary work as a way of bringing good into other nations, rather than military intervention where we don't belong and have not been invited. It hasn't, and the U.S. has had a greater military involvement in the world in the last half of the last century than in any other time. Yet the world has less peace than ever before. The gospel of Christ brings peace and conquers evil. Focus your energies there and act in humility to all you face who are not of your faith (as I have no reason to doubt you do), and forget about the idea of the United States bringing peace to the world via it's military. That path will never bring peace. Defending ourselves and our allies from direct attacks against Islamo-Fascism is one thing; defending people who do not even want us present because we know what is best is another. And that's why we need to be humble. --David

Because George Bush is arrogant. He thumbed his nose at Europe when the U.N. voted his war down and started the war he always intended to start anyway. He did it on false pretenses that even he does not make any more effort to defend. No one invited us to be the great helpers you say we are to the Iraqi people. We invited outselves where WE WERE NOT WANTED. Aside from our false pretenses, we also said it was because Saddam was defying U.N. resolutions. He certainly was BUT it is up the U.N. to decide how it wants to enforce U.N. resolutions. The resolutions were not created just for our use. Once we put the terms of surrender from the first Gulf war to be negotiated in the U.N., then we put enforcement of those terms under U.N. authority and supervision. We need to be humbled because we presume we can decide for ourselves how U.N. mandates will be enforced and because we start wars by giving untrue reasons or hugely exagerating the significance of any facts. Afghanistan, on the other hand, was not a war fought over U.N. sanctions or based on false pretenses or on behalf of the U.N. It is a war fought solely on behalf of the U.S. for its own legitimate reasons with the help of those allies who were willing to join us. --David

I gotta pull in the reins, myself. It's time to go out and make a livin' for the day. End of cowboy talk. --David

Probably. But, in that case, we should have stated our true reasons for going to war in Iraq: "We're doing this so we can gang up on Iran from all sides." Now, that would have made Iran sweat. Just kidding. I know it's probably not practical because it may have made Iran and Iraq strange-bedfellow friends -- drive our enemies to seek each other's protection. A better plan, I think, would have been to pour all these resources into Afghanistan and transform it into the gem of Middle East, while we carried out real diplomacy with other nations over Iraq, giving Saddam more time and more ways to flaunt his arrogance. That would have given other nations more time and more reasons to despise him while buying us all the time we needed to make Afghanistan a huge success in every way. (To stay with the cowboy motif, we should have cut him enough rope to hang himself.) Then, Saddam's Suny followers, seeing that the U.S. actually did transform Afghanistan AND LEAVE, would be a lot more willing to say, "Hmm, maybe they're not just the aggressive oil occupiers that we thought they were." Instead, Bush seemed intent upon proving the world's fears right. That strategy would have taken more than one administration to play out, but Bush said he was a patient man; so, I think it's the strategy that would have kept from turning the Middle East into the greater hot bed that it is today. It would have proven, prior to any conflict in Iraq, that we are not there to occupy and that this kind of change is good. We'd have a LOT more grass-roots support in those countries. And we'd have a lot more support from the rest of the world after scoring a MAJOR success. We also would have learned a lot in Afghanistan about fighting in that area and would have built a lot more local contacts first. But the arrogant overreach and try to do too much at once, thinking they're too big and too smart to fail.

Could be. I've wondered the same. It's a good overall strategy as strategies go, but these guys are convincing me less and less that they have any smarts in the strategy department. They appear to all the world to be operating without an effective game plan and with a lot of false assumptions from the get-go. The only thing that keeps me wondering if they had such a strategy is that it's the only thing I can think of that would explain why they tried to justify a war they clearly wanted to have. I think we're breeding bees by building hives. If that's what Bush thought, it was certainly naive. You can't go ignoring what other nations are clearly telling you, wacking them over the head as "Old France" then expect they're going to line up behind you. Sovereign nations don't take that kinda elephant pucky. You have to work WITH them, allowing them the time and trouble with Saddam they need to come around. Bush gave some time, but it was clear his agenda was already in full swing, even as he claimed to be waiting. I think most of the nations in the U.N. felt Bush was only giving other nations time because it served his own interest to ready his forces anyway. I don't think they took his bullheaded diplomacy seriously Buckled? Or got publicly bushwacked and said, "Fight it on your own, Pal." Well, there is no doubt that Bush's cowboy diplomacy needed a little humbling. So, I'm sure that was a part of it. But that's what I'm saying. If you're going to ride herd on the rest of the nations, then you have to expect that people of very high power are not going to take your pushing and cajoling. I think Bush made the United States look like everything the EU feared it was. Bush gave anti-Americanism a real big target. I certainly agree. I think Bush naively thought that people crave democracy. Remember how Israel craved a king when it had judges, which were much closer to being a democracy. Countries in the Middle East crave strong-man leadership. I also think it is a foolish notion to think democracy will make things any better over there. Alexander de Toqueville said, after he visited and analyzed our democracy for France, "America is good because it's people are good. When America's people cease to be good, America will cease to be good." In saying that, he recognized the true goodness in America at that time came from its people and was not guaranteed by its form of government. He recognized an undeniable truth that a "government by the people" cannot be any better than the people. So, in the Middle East, how is a government by people who hate us going to be good for us? I agree again. We're stuck now, and we have to fight it out to the best possible outcome. But I don't think you're going to see the Democrats cut and run. They're sick of that reputation. Instead, you'll see them make better diplomatic efforts than our chief diplomat and try to recover some world support so other troops can slowly replace ours ... so this is not seen as an American occupation. Whether they can build any bridges so quickly after Bush lit so many on fires, I don't know; but it may be that some nations will now step in just to boost the present change in our government. Maybe. I won't hold my breath. It surely is. That's why I'm so happy about the change. It is, at least, change, which is going to force accountability into the Bush Administration for its many oversights and gross failures (like Tora Bora). --David

Apparently, not much. Before we went into Iraq, the Democrats strongly warned that this would be another "quagmire" like Vietnam. Bush, like Kennedy, thought it would be a cakewalk because the people of the country would be so happy to be occupied by their saviors. Hardly. It is now becoming the quagmire that it was predicted to become based on our experience as an occupying force in Vietnam. It's not a now-what. It was an INCREDIBLY stupid mistake! I mean, if I started howling the second I heard that's what we were doing and start ranting that we'll lose him for sure, then it had to be pretty stupid for me to realize it so quickly, right? (I'm givin' ya a wide-open shot here.) And because it was SOOO stupid, we need the Donkeys to kick some Elephant posterior. (Gee, who'da thunk that multi-millionaire bin Laden would be able to pay off the greedy warlord that apprehended him on the way outa town??? Who coulda guessed that call?) With a new administration that doesn't make such blatantly stupid errors. For the price we pay, we have every right to expect the very highest quality leadership. So dumb mistakes at that level cannot be tolerated. Regular mistakes, yes. Dumb mistakes, no. There has to be accountability, and that's what this election was all about. We're gonna hold some feet to the fire. Do I smell Republican rump roast? --David

Ted, The first I heard that Al Qaeda was streaming in in numbers, I thought the same thing. I said, "Brilliant! Draw them all in ON SOMEONE ELSE'S SOIL, and then close the net around them." I no longer hold that theory, however, because we did not seem at all prepared to draw the net. In fact, we have not even been able to kill the kingpins without a considerable amount of time. Iraq is, at least, keeping Al Qaeda occupied off of our soil, but so much for closing the net and killing them all. In the long run, it could be much worse for us because there are so many we can't seem to kill for whom this was their recruiting ground and training ground and is now a new place of covert operations, which it was not before. I agree, Justin, and your description also sounds just like the Republican party to me. Frankly, I'd be glad to line up both parties in a gauntlet, them facing out and bent over, and kick every one of them in the butt. Notice it didn't take long to convince CONSERVATIVES that voted the REPUBLICANS into office, that things weren't going so well. Let's see, under George Bush we've had: An amnesty plan for migrant workers so that we can outsource the remaining jobs that CANNOT leave the country simply because they involve work that has to be done here. The largest expansion of government I've seen in my lifetime with a whole new bureaucracy created to solve the problem of other bureaucracies that couldn't find a way to communicate with each other. (The kind of big government that Repubs used to hate Dems for.) The largest expansion of government evesdropping in our nation's history. (The kind of big government that Repubs used to hate Dems for.) A return to enormous deficit spending and government debt (The kind of big government that Repubs used to hate Dems.) Six years more of porous, insecure borders, until a grass-roots effort to step in and do what the president wouldn't do forced the president to, at least, look like he is doing something about it. White-water-washed sexual scandals. Gee, I'm having a hard time remembering why it was I used to vote for Republicans! Line 'em all up, so I can kick 'em in the butt. At least, now, the Dems can do a little butt-kicking for me. The Jack Asses should be good at that. --David

I'm content to leave it there. Blessings, David

If the evidence were there and were credible, you can be CERTAIN that all of those Republicans who were just voted out of office would have been trumpeting it every day. It is the "evidence" that is speculative and grasping at straws. Republicans would not run from using solid evidence that they were right. It isn't there. Frankly, I WISH it was. I hoped president Bush would be right, since I voted for him. I hoped when Colin Powell presented the presidents evidence to the U.N. I would be blown away because I have a lot of respect for Powell and still do. As I sat and watched it, I grew sadder and sadder. When the Iraqi ambassador said at the end, "I had to laugh." I said out loud, "Sadly, so do I." It was the biggest dog-and-pony show I ever saw. I could see right through all the "evidence" to the flaws that were there. Right off, I was asking, "How many days were there between the exit of those chemical clean-up trucks and the arrival of the UNSCOM vehicles? How do you know those ventilation pipes that run way out into the dessert are to exhaust possible gas leaks from chemicals used for weapons? Gas leaks from chemicals used for commercial insecticides are just as deadly and just as important to exhaust far from people. How do you know those chemical trucks weren't there to clean up an chemical leak in an insecticide plant? There were so many questions that JUST WERE NOT ANSWERED by Powell or anyone. The "evidence" was as full of holes a Swiss Cheese. And I WANTED to believe it. I was glued to the tube in hopes of seeing that Bush had good evidence for what he was about to do. I WANTED to believe we would only go to war for the right reasons. From that day on, I began seriously questioning where the administration was going. So, I see evidence very clearly and poor evidence for what it is. Bush saw what he WANTED to see in the evidence, and that was increasingly apparent to me as Powell continued speaking. That was a sad day for me. --David

I think that is a very unfair characterization. The "Powell Doctrine" said that the U.S. should always apply overwhelming force in a military situation. Rumsfeld was for applying only as much force as precisely necessary. The problem, which Powell knew but a CEO didn't, is that military operation are not that predictable and quatifiable that you can know what is necessary. The other part of his doctrine is that overwhelming force creates terror and makes the enemy fold faster, thus actually sparing more lives and more expense because it's over more quickly. Rumsfeld STAUNCHLY opposed that approach, and it is clear that we have not had enough soldiers present to do the job quickly. We had enough to carry out the intitial attack, but nowhere near enough to do all the ground clean-up that is necessary to police the situation and create peace and stability. That's why this just drizzles on forever. The unfair part of your statement is that Powell cut and run. He certainly did not. He didn't criticize Rumsfeld publically, and he still has not criticized Rumsfeld because the war continues and because he is not a critical person. He's more about focusing on the job at hand than critiquing the past. He staid with the president until the president's term ended and then made a graceful exit because he disagreed with how things were going, but he didn't say he disagreed publically. That's what others said who were party to meetings where Powell and Rumsfeld were both present. It was obvious the president was not listening to Powell, and he could not with integrity continue to put himself behind a president who wanted to do things a much different way. I think that is highly respectable. He after all, was serving voluntarily and his advice was consistently being ignored. I agree with a lot of the rest of what you have to say, but Iraq is the wrong war. Nevertheless, we are there and we MUST win now because the alternative is worse. So, our troops can serve with the full confidence that they are doing the right thing at this point, even if it is the wrong war because that's history. Now the peace has to be won, and that's a tougher thing to accomplish. Bush tested the waters with a number of claims. He recognized that Congress would not support a war based on the legitimate claims that Saddam was not honoring the truce from the first war; so he started talking about WMD and Al Qaeda. The WMD were scarcely mentioned at first, but it became clear that the scare of chemical weapons was what had cache with the public; so he focused on those claims. Only problem was those were the claims with the least amount of evidence. Saddam locking his radar onto our plane was clear. WMD were always more speculative. In the final lead-up to the war, WMD and the war on terror became Bush's mantra for the war -- not the public's. He was the one controlling the message and choosing to repeat the parts that found cache with the public and he repeated them over and over and over. No one made him focus on that public interest. He CHOSE to. The bottom line is he moved to things that had very poor substantiation because they were the things that could sell the war he WANTED to have, and he was WRONG. No moral people can sit back and let their president start wars on false pretenses. Maybe the war would have eventually been inevitable. In that case, it was someone else's war to fight in a future time. Wrong time. Wrong Place. Accountability. I think Bush has done this nation diplomatic harm from which it will take decades to cover. Had he staid in Afghanistan, the entire world would have been behind us, and the entire nation would have been behind him. And when all the money spent in Iraq was spent, instead, in Afghanistan, the shining example created would have ended most Arab delusions that the U.S. only cares about war. What could have been created with that money would shine so brightly that some nations would practically beg for the U.S. to attack their dictators. It was an incredible loss of opportunity by arrogantly overplaying his hand at a time when the ENTIRE world was behind us because of 9/11. Even our worst enemies were silent about our going into Afghanistan because the connection between that country and 9/11 was CRYSTAL CLEAR. It was a great opportunity squandered. Then Iraq could have been dealt with by some future president AFTER it clearly began to overplay its hand as despots always do in the end. I'm not saying any of this in hindsight. I said it from the moment we went into Iraq. I've written it many times since, and I continue to believe history is already showing it to be true. --David

Look, I use the term "a few rusty warheads" figuratively but faithful to the truth. EVEN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION did not consider the find of WMD to be significant. They very obviously avoided attributing much significance to it because they knew that, from a military standpoint, they would appear to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for anything they could find to legitimize their effort. There is no proof at all that Saddam moved his WMD to Syria. That has always been unverified speculation. BUT, if it were true, Bush would be all the more to blame for observing it happen (to the point that we can claim it did happen) while doing nothing to stop it immediately. Why would he be all the more to blame? BECAUSE Bush said that if we didn't go to war in Iraq, those weapons would proliferate into the hands of others. Then it turns out that his threat to go to war with Saddam caused exactly that to happen. It would mean that Bush's loud threats of war were like water on a gasoline fire, causing Saddam to quickly disperse his weapons into the hands of others ... and Bush let it happen! Remember, the speculation was happening before the war; so, if I knew about, then George Bush has no excuse not to have known about it. So, let's hope that speculation is wrong, or Bush has a lot more to answer for. The article you read about Al Qaeda ties were also speculation, at the time, based on incomplete evidence. You will notice that the president's own administration has accepted the fact that there are no Al Qaeda ties. They are remarkably quiet when people accuse them of being wrong on those two matters WMD and Al Qaeda ties. They know the "evidence" is too pathetic to even try to stand on. It was fine for speculation, but not as proof of anything. There is a LOT to be answered for here, and now that's going to happen.

That is a perfect example. Cheney, as I recall, did not exactly say, "We're going to do waterboarding." He was asked if he would be against it, and he said something to the effect of "I wouldn't mind seeing waterboarding used against these guys." That gives him "plausible deniablity" in his public statements. He has just tipped his hat the military and said "waterboard away, Guys (and Gals)." But, if it happens and the public outrage comes, he'll say, "I didn't ask for waterboarding. I was answering a question about my personal likes and dislikes, and I said that I PERSONALLY don't have any objection to it. But I DID NOT put out an order for water boarding." Rumsfeld works the same way on these shady areas. It's very sly. They can actually give a PUBLIC order to do waterboarding by tipping their hat without actually giving any official order at all. To the military, it means, if you do this and don't get caught, you won't hear anything about it from us; but it's your job to not get caught. --David

I agree with your statements about all the wrongs Saddam did, Ted. But, if those were the reasons for war, then those are the reasons the president should have given; but he didn't. His reasons for war were very clearly declared before the entire world -- WMD and Al Qaeda ties with Saddam to the war on terror. So, why didn't he rest on those other reasons? Because he knew that neither Congress nor the majority of the people nor the world would accept a war for those reasons. It would have been far more respectable if the president had made his case for war on the reasons you give and, if people wouldn't go for it, then no war. But you CANNOT let a president get away with raising false pretenses as the basis for a war. Even the president called it a pre-emptive war, so clearly he was not relying on those past reasons. That would have made it a retaliatory war. I agree, too, that the Gulf War never ended in the first place. I knew it wouldn't because GB1 chose to leave the cancer in place. What GB2 should have done to correct the problem is made a declaration that the United States would "return to conflict" with Saddam if the truce was not upheld AND lay out specifically what acts were happening that were against the truce. It should have told the world that it would go to war solely to enforce the truce and then given a time limit with statement during that time, showing where the truce was still being broken and letting the world know that each break was a step to war. THEN CONGRESS WOULD HAVE TO VOTE WHETHER TO GO TO WAR ON THAT BASIS. But they were asked to vote for war on false pretenses. There decision might have been different if they were given different reasons. And Saddam's actions might have been different if we didn't keep insisting false things, which he knew were false. Maybe. That's the problem with false reasons. It leaves a lot of maybe about what would have happened if the truth had been used as our basis.

That's debatable. Just one day before the election major military newspapers came out with op eds stating the Rumsfeld needed to be removed. According to what I read, there is only one other time in history (not sure what time) when these same publication asked for the removal of a Secretary of Defense. That shows a pretty high level of disastisfaction. But I think you are also a little too easily dismissive of the many generals who have asked for Rumsfeld's removal. That, too, is not typical. It happens, but not in such numbers. You sweep it too easily under the carpet as being a few disgruntled generals. Maybe those generals were very smart generals who were rightfully disgruntled because they stood against Rumsfelds lame ideas and he went his own way. No one seems too impressed with how Rumsfeld's way is working out. So, maybe it was right of those generals to speak out in favor of superior ideas. They're not just unhappy employees. There will always be shortfall in supply and in strategy, BUT America is a strong country that has a right to expect high-quality performance. Rumsfeld is well paid for what he does (maybe not by his standards, but by most of ours); so, we have a right to expect the highest level of performance. Even Colin Powel locked horns often with Rumsfeld, and I think the "Powel Doctrine" was right. The war, however, was wrong. Wrong time and wrong place to be fighting the war on terror. Afghanistan was the right time and right place, and, had we put all the resources we've dumped into Iraq into Afghanistan instead, Afghanistan would be a smashing success. We should have spent the money we spent on war in Iraq, claiming the peace in Afghanistan by building up a beautiful country at amazing speed. But the war there drags on, too. And don't even get me started about the shear stupidity of the choice in Tora Bora to let the Afghan warlords take out bin Laden. That is right. We could not afford an unnecessary war while fighting a very necessary (and morally legitimate one) in Afghanistan. We had plenty of money to do Afghanistan well. --David

I think that could be a little naive with no offense intended. It's just that I believe Rumsfeld set the atmosphere that allowed Abu Graib to happen, and I think he knew that he was doing that. I don't think he knew what specifically was happening there, but I think he made it clear, if only by implication, that he would be glad if they got a little rough an ugly. There are ways that people have of retaining "plausible deniabilty" while tipping their hat to let others know what they would "like" to see done. --David

Where do you get your false information. No ties to Al Qaeda have been established. The most remote tie was that some Al Qaeda members (a very, very small number) seem to have been in the country while Saddam was leader; but there is no established connection at all between them and him, no indication he had any knowledge of their presence. To hold him accountable for that, even if he is a mean person, is morally wrong. I guarantee you that there are Al Qaeda people present in OUR country, too, right now while George Bush is president. Does that make George Bush a rightful target in our war on terror? You have to apply the same standard of justice to all, not one to our leader and another to Saddam. There is NO known Al Qaeda connection with Saddam. So, he is NOT a legitimate target in the war on terror. Your information about Al Qaeda is a gross exageration of what was truly found there. As for WMD, a few rusty warheads were found lost behind some piles of junk. Do you think that, if George Bush were required to get rid of all chemical weapons, he could be sure of locating every single one. I think Saddam had no awareness of those weapons as they were considered barely usable, given their age, and hard for us to find (took over a year) even with full access to the country and total control of the government at that time. If the war was about refusal to cooperate with inspectors, then that is the sole basis George Bush should have given; but he knew the majority of the country would not go to war for that reason, and he knew the world would not join him in any coalition for that reason; so, he either concocted or was far too quick to believe that there was a much graver danger that would justify war. HE WAS WRONG. And only morally iresponsible people do not hold their leader morally responsible on such grave errors. --David