slothrop

Cuz you keep bringing it down.

Riiiiiight. We can do it just because we believe we can. Sorry, my view of world politics is not so faith-based. You gotta pick your battles and your methods of fighting them. Iraq was a poorly-chosen battle and badly fought. Sure, even invincible 'Merica can make mistakes, but we have to know when we make them and change our ways. Bush is ignoring the bad news and refuses to listen to anything other than what he already believes. If you are not willing to change, then the world will change around you. One day, you wake up and everyone's outsmarted you and your set-in-stone strategy. I don't want my country to end up that way.

How can you call Yugoslavia a guerilla war?

Pathetic. You don't even know your own candidate. What do you think Kerry's position is? He clearly wanted to use war as a last resort. In his speech before the vote to give Bush authority to use force (thus making our threats more credible), he called for the use of diplomacy first. He said he wouldn't have invaded Iraq when Bush did, but wanted to let weapons inspectors keep doing their thing. Here's a decent summary of Kerry's opinion on the Iraq invasion: http://www.slate.com/Default.aspx?id=2106946&

Ah, "my boy" Clinton. Yugoslavia was what? Are you trying to say something, or are you resorting to again because you have nothing useful to say? England v. the colonies was what? A guerilla war... that the guerillas won.

Huh? Saddam was not attacking his neighbors. He had no WMD. There were international inspectors and a no-fly zone (threat of force) ensuring all of this. Kerry's approach, I believe, would have been to not abandon these successful methods of containment for a risky, unjustified, destabilizing war of unprovoked aggression. The US would have hundreds of thousands of uncommitted troops ready to deploy against real threats (foreign or domestic), billions of dollars to spend on domestic problems and international nonproliferation efforts, and the goodwill and cooperation of many more nations around the world. Did the Soviet Union fall because of a military invasion? Do ya think maybe there were some economic, diplomatic, and social factors that led to its collapse? Years of non-violent pressure from the US and it's allies, maybe?

If the Europeans were so dependent on Iraqi oil and crushing the insurgency is the only way to stabilize Iraq enough to allow oil to flow again, wouldn't Europe jump on the coalition bandwagon and start pulling their weight? Maybe one or more of your assumptions is incorrect. Bush's war planning was terrible. If he didn't plan for an insurgency and Islamic terrorists running amok, he or his advisors have no grasp of what the "war on terror" means. Since they're not willing to adjust their strategy in the face of reality, there's no reason to reelect them. When is the last time an invader won a guerilla war without resorting to genocide? I'm still awaiting an answer. Examples of when it went badly for the invader: Germany v. Russia ('40s), Russia v. Afghanistan ('80s), US v. Vietnam ('60s-'70s).

Iran is not economically self-sufficient, so diplomatic pressure can induce change. Iran's national airline is basically grounded because they can't get parts. Resumption of shipments of these parts is one of the carrots that Europeans have held out to Iran. I don't really get your argument. First, you say no one wants to invade Iran, then you belittle diplomacy as a method of effecting change in Iran. So which is it? It sounds like you're just belittling Europe because it's fashionable--hardly a noble or effective approach to international relations, but one that our current administration seems to favor. Or are you trying to imply that merely the threat of force is necessary? Wouldn't having our forces committed elsewhere substantially reduce the potency of our threat projection capability? No one's going to believe us if we go to rattle our saber and it's already drawn against someone else.

Your tirades would be more interesting if you didn't wander off into criticisms of imaginary positions held by "the left", Jay. Bilateral negotiations are different than unilateral invasions, and bilateral talks and multilateral talks are not mutually exclusive. In fact, having both sets of negotiations could work like a "good cop, bad cop" scheme (with the US as the bad cop, of course ). It would be dumb to dismantle ongoing multilateral negotiations with North Korea, but I don't think it's a bad idea to have one-on-one (not one-vs.-one) meetings, too. You're swinging blind at the Liberal pinata, Jay, and here's why (from a policy paper on Kerry's website: http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/pr_2004_0601b.pdf): I'm sure you can cite some internet source to say that bilateral negotiations are the only way, but the man who's up for election doesn't agree with that.

You're right, Fairweather. I don't think invading Israel and marching freedom into Jerusalem will win the war on terrrrr. We could gain some goodwill from the Islamic world by helping resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict, though. It's an opportunity we shouldn't miss out on, even though it'd be hard work.

Yep, Saddam was a bad guy. No doubt about it. You think this justified an invasion, I don't. It's a boring debate from here on out.

Hey, guess what? The US gives money to Israel to spend on weapons and bulldozers and settlements. Palestinians would probably consider that "funding terrorists". Maybe, just maybe, that has something to do with why Muslims don't like us.

I'm not as angry about a corrupt UN as I am about a corrupt US. The reason why should be obvious. Corruption should be investigated and punished. Your trolling skills need work.

WND is not a source, sorry. Primary or respectable sources, please. And none of those organizations attacked Americans, unless you'd like to inform me otherwise.

Are we living in Palestine? Did Saddam ever fund terrorists attacking Americans? Read the article chucK linked. The reporter clearly states that the complex was not thoroughly searched.

Dammit, Fairweather, now I'm confused. I thought Britain was our ally? You know, like, part of the coalition. How can British people not like us? Is it something we said? From the NBC news story chucK linked: If the 101st didn't thoroughly search the huge complex ("1,000 buildings") on April 4 or 10, how could they say whether the HMX/RDX was there or not? In any case, the Iraq Survey Group says there was a period of seven weeks where the complex was left unguarded by US troops. It doesn't matter what the original story was... when new facts come up, stories are corrected or added to ("embellished"). I don't understand your gripe with the date.

Don't mock the geeks or they'll go off and form their own climbing bulletin board (crackcaliperz.nu) with collaborative filtering and RSS and all that shizzle. Pr3p@r3 2 B 0wn3d!

Where's the "wildly tangential reference to a provocative French film director that's over everyone's head" gremlin?

You can always tell who's hiding a Met5 vest under his jacket by the raptors riding the thermal over his head.

http://blogspace.com/rss/readers :geek:

Scott, can you name a single guerilla war in which the more powerful invader prevailed without resorting to genocide? History is full of examples where the vastly more powerful invader was brought to its knees or forced to withdraw by the occupied people. I don't think "shock and awe" is going to win the war in Iraq or overwhelm the Islamist insurgency around the world. Our enemies deal in violence, not in diplomacy, but they also feed off of violence. Airstrikes and raids by the US forces only seem to incite them further and serve as motivational tools for their recruitment efforts.

The #0 Clog cam is my least favorite piece... I place it as soon as I can just to get rid of the thing. Friends smaller than #1.5 aren't nearly as nice as TCUs or Aliens.

RSS is a way of packaging web data so you can aggregate it. In other words, RSS feeds let you gather the content from different websites together and read it all at once. Imagine a web page where you have your favorite cc.com forums in one box, the news headlines in another, and (as PP suggests) real-time images of your favorite mountain passes in another.

Yeah, that couloir on Buckner looks awesome. This looks like a good ski, if you're into that sort of thing: http://www.pbase.com/nolock/image/35442686

Aiding Iron Horse, I got up to the pins, clipped their slings, and decided to move right toward a little block and then to the Sagitarius belay instead of going straight up. From the pins, I placed a so-so green Alien and then got an inverted cam hook under the block. Next was a small brass offset, which I bounce tested lightly and moved onto, removing the hook. After a few seconds, the brassie blew, the Alien popped out, and real quick-like I was 10 feet from the ground. My belayer (nameless cc.commie ), standing quite a ways back from the wall, got yanked forward, making for a soft catch but a longer fall. TimL was climbing 10% MV, I think, and called over asking if someone had just taken a whipper. I scraped up my elbow and tore a hole in my windshirt, but otherwise no damage done.