JayB

From what I have seen - predicting when a market that seems to be driven by speculative investment will correct itself is a lot like predicting when an avalanche will occur on a particular slope. We all know the factors that increase the risk that a slope will slide - recent snowfall, pitch, wind loading, rising temperatures, which direction its facing, etc - but there's no way to predict exactly when (or if) a slide will occur, how bad it will be, etc. Heck - Greenspan made his "Irrational Exhuberance" speech in 1996 - and for the next few years investing in stocks produced record returns, despite the alarming metrics and the chorus of voices cautioning investors to consider the risks of investing in such a market. With respect to home prices - no one really knows, and all markets are different. Some areas where prices seem to be impossibly high by all of the usual metrics, the prices may continue to go up then level off for a period of years, stabilize at present values, drop, etc - there are just too many variables involved to make specific predictions about a particular outcome occuring at a particular point in time in a particular market. However, I think it is possible to look at the numbers, get a sense of the personal risk involved to you in a spectrum of scenarios - and base your decision on that information if buying a home is something that you are contemplating doing for purely financial motives (turning a profit). For example, it seems clear that taking out an ARM to buy an investment/rental property in a market like San Francisco would be an incredibly risky proposition at the moment - at least for the average person who's contemplating sinking a significant portion of their net worth and future earnings into such a property.

I agree with you about the long-term benefits Jim. I also started to look at the appreciation vs. inflation, value of taxes paid on a property versus the value of the tax-deduction (deduction against income rather than taxes), typical upkeep, closing costs, broker's fees, etc. and the short term picture looked less than compelling. I also concluded that most homeowners seem to omit these costs when calculating their potential gains from a sale, and that their nominal gains (sale-price versus purchase price) typically omit the effect of net taxes, upkeep, insurance, financing costs, etc when comparing the economic benefits to other investments. I plan to buy a home eventually, but it will definitely be for the long-term, and mostly for non-financial reasons.

True - but this is a broad national increase relative to incomes, population growth, rents - and increasingly financed by what essentially amounts to subprime lending agreements - suggests that there's more than location at work here. I agree that a desireable location close to an employment center is consistent with high real estate prices, but not necessarily with rapid appreciation over and above prices that are already high relative to other areas. In those cases it seems like the fundamentals that should drive prices would be an increasing population, average real income, or borrowing power in the area under consideration. In King County, the last I heard was the there's beeen a net population loss of 50,000 since 2000, and home price increases have by now increased far faster than personal income growth or the rate of appreciation in the average mortgage that one could qualify for due to lower interest rates.

I am going to have to make a move fairly soon, an event which prompted the buy-vs-rent discussion. So - the first thing I tried to do was locate statistics for housing that are comparable to those available for stocks and bonds, in order to get a sense of how the current metrics stacked up to the historical averages. This meant looking at the historical ratios of mortgages to rents for similar propterties, rates of appreciation versus income growth, appreciation versus population growth, ratios of home prices to annual incomes, percentages of homes purchased by owner-occupants versus investors, traditional mortgages (20% down, 30 year, fixed) as a percent of loan originations, etc. What I found is that this sort of data, where it exists at all, is incredibly hard to come by, is of unveven quality, and covers a rather short period of time. This is important information, as I'd only be living in the place for three years - and even in a normal market that'd entail a fairly significant amount of risk as an investment - as a certain amount of appreciation is required just to break even with such a short time horizon. Anyway - the short term stats that I found pertained to housing values relative to income growth, population growth, household formation, screamed anything but "Buy!," especially in the hotter markets. Ditto for the percentage of homes by investors rather than owner occupants, the percentage of homes purchased using interest-only loans, ARM, or some permutation thereof, etc. Then there's the anedotal information about condos being flipped several times before construction in Florida, people quitting their jobs to invest in real-estate full time, the popular notion that home prices can never go down, etc, have always appreciated steadily, etc. This last point is interesting - as the only long-term data for US home prices that I was able to find were in Robert Schiller's update to "Irrational Exhuberance," and his data - currently the best available as far as I know - show real rates of appreciation between 1890 and the present averaged 0.4% per year, and that the vast majority of the appreciation occured in the period just after WWII and in the period since around 1997. Otherwise - no appreciation beyond the rate of inflation over the entire period. Anyway - I'd be curious to see what other people think about the current state of the market? Are the increases we've seen in home prices fundamentally sustainable or not? Are we in a bubble that will result in a broad decline in house prices or will the rate of appreciation just cool off for a while?

I think that it is fundamentally unnknowable whether or not the incident happened. I don't really care either way, but it seems like a defiling a religious zealot's holy book in front of him would only harden his resolve, so it seems like a rather odd tactic to use if extracting information is one's primary objective. On a more global level, I rarely lend unquestioning credence to personal testimonials from people with an obvious agena to advance. In this case, most of the prisoners have an incentive to paint the US in the worst possible light, and the administration has a strong incentive to discredit the story. In constrast to obsessing over the minutia of whether or not someone in the US millitary tossed a Koran in the crapper, I think that the far more interesting story is the manner in which this story has been put to use around in certain quarters. I also think it's worth noting the contrast between the outrage that this story has created in certain populations, and the manner in which they greet the news of another suicide bombing in a crowded market, next to a schoolyard, more mass graves being unearthed, etc.

From the source: "An FBI agent wrote in a 2002 document made public on Wednesday that a detainee held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had accused American jailers there of flushing the Koran down a toilet." The documents in question are summaries of comments made by detainees during interviews with FBI agents, rather than specific claims advanced by the FBI during an investigation. http://www.aclu.org/torturefoia/released/052505/

I grew up in Lakewood, and when I heard the name I thought of the Mr. Stark I knew from my days in boy scouts. The age was about right, and he had a son in the troop that was a couple of years younger than myself - which made me think that he could very easily have a nephew this age as well. I also recalled that he was a pilot for United. Now that I have learned that one of the deceased was also an airline pilot for United, it's looking an awful lot like this is the same man that I remember. What was really confusing to me, though, was the fact that the two were found without the gear they'd need to survive a night out or a storm, as that was one of the things that all of the adults that took part in activities with the troop really hammered home. Now that I've learned that they apparently had all the gear that they'd need to survive the storm - I'm even more confused. I'm out of time for now, and will add a bit more later, but in the meantime - remember that the family is local, and the odds are fairly high that they will come across what you write here as they are working through their grief.

It seems to me that the essential conjecture here is that were it not for the restrictions placed on stem cell research, all important discoveries in the field would occur in the United States. Maybe, maybe not. I actually think that the only advantage that the US has had relative to the rest of the world for the past 50 is the climate of opportunity that we've created, which has enabed the US to siphon off the best and brightest scientists and graduate students from the rest of the world - especially Asia. Now that most Asian countries can offer their scientists the opportunity to pursue a career that's at least as lucrative and promising as anything that they'd have a chance to partake of in the United States, I think that the disparity in the pace of innovation that we've been able to exploit to our advantage for the past half-century will rapidly dissapear. My advice - get used to reading about significant discoveries occuring outside of the United States in this and many other fields - no matter which party is in charge.

That's what this thread really needs..

Well - it's nice to know that the order of the universe remains intact, and the scope of our agreements remains narrow.

Well - I think it comes down to how one defines subsidies. I generally oppose paying people to produce goods and services in excess of effective market demand, and tarrifs or quotas that protect enable producers to charge consumers higher prices than they would be able to command in the absence of such impediments to competition. In other cases - when there's something that amounts to the government making a capital investment in improving the nation's productive capacities or competitiveness with public funds - I am generally in favor of such expenditures, especially when the goal in question like, say, putting a man on the moon - could not be accomplished with private funds or there exists no effective demand in the marketplace, such as an investment in research to find treatments for rare diseases. But the reality is that the potential for such investments is infinite, resources to fund them are finite, and there will always be intense disputes about how to allocate resources amongst competing perogatives and interests. My basic contention is that the best way to insure that we have adequate means to fund worthy causes is to insure that the economy remains sound. Where you and I differ is with respect for the best way to go about doing that.

Value judgements aside, wasn't your specific claim that in this case the administration was - literally - forcing Newsweek to retract a claim that they had irrefutable evidence to support? I was just asking what factual evidence there was to support such a claim, and went on to argue that if they were posessed of such power there were other, more significant stories they would have used the said power to repress long before this story ever broke. I also argued that the claim that any administration has, or has ever had, effective control of the press is not consistent with history. Also - with respect to the stories that you cited - the very fact that you - as an average citizen with no special connections -know of them suggests that they did, in fact, receive sufficient coverage for the average citizen to be fully aware of them. It further suggests that your fellow citizens have also followed these stories, but that their knowledge of them hasn't quite aroused the same level of outrage amongst them as it has in you , because their politics are different than your own.

But Matt - a letter to the editor from Joe Blow in Topeka is one thing, and concrete evidence that the administration coerced Newsweek into retracting a story that they didn't like, despite the said periodical having ironclad evidence to support their claims, is quite another. My second point is hardly a red-herring if the specific question is whether or not the adminstration has the capability to squelch stories that they don't like by threatening the news organizations that report them. If that was the case, I doubt that we would have ever seen or heard anything concerning the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, which, to the best of my understanding - were unearthed and investigated by the armed forces long before the press got ahold of them. Again - if there were a story that the administration would want to squelch, this would be it. Your main point actually seems to be that the administration will spin press blunders to its own advantage when someone uncovers problems with the evidence used to support the specific claims in the story, to which my response is "Yes, and..." The "and" in this case, seems to be that the public doesn't seem quite as riled up about these things as people who passionately despise the administration and all that it stands for. Again - I'm left asking - "where's the story here?" Seems like the late Kathering Mackinnon being beside herself when she discovers that the mechanics in the garage down the street don't find strip shows qutie as offensive as she does.

If one applies Occam's razor to these episodes and deals with the known facts, what seems to have happened is that both CBS and now Newsweek had generally sound stories concerning Bush's service in the National Guard, and the treatment of detainees in Guantanamo, but they jumped the gun and published the stories before taking time to validate the autheniticy of some of their principle sources. In the end, the failure to do so ended up getting more coverage than the episodes the original stories were intended to uncover. The administration naturally used these shortcomings to their advantage, but their doing so is hardly surprising, or uniquely malevolent. The lesson here is that if you want your story to stick, make sure that all of your evidence is unimpeachable before going to print.

Matt: I have no problem with the notion that any administration that occupies the Whitehouse will have the desire to squelch stories that are damaging to them. Where I see your argument falling short is in the ability of the administration to control such stories. Firstly where, exactly, is the factual evidence that the administration has done this? Death threats? Lawsuits? Harsh language? To reiterate what I said above, it seems as though Newsweek would have a Pulitzer worthy story on their hands if they could document such coercion, which would dwarf the Koran in the crapper story in terms of significance. Why would they fail to disclose such pressure, especially if they had the evidence necessary to support the original claims. Secondly - if this adminstration had somehow acquired an ability to coerce and manipulate the press in a manner that was hitherto impossible, even by the likes of Nixon and Kissinger, then why is it that possibly the single most damaging news story to emerge since the advent of their administration - the absence of WMD stockpiles in Iraq and the generally low quality of the intelligence available prior to the war - has received such universal coverage. It would seem to me that if there was a single story that they would squelch if they could - this would be the one.

You know you're in trouble when people don't bother to aquiant themselves with facts before pontificating.... Panel says BayOil key in Saddam scheme Houston firm was 'puppeteer' in oil-for-food scam, investigators say By DAVID IVANOVICH Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - Houston's BayOil (USA) was the "puppeteer" in a scheme to help Russian politicians profit illegally from the United Nations' oil-for-food program and pay kickbacks to Saddam Hussein's regime, Senate investigators say.

Yeah! More Galloway!!!!!!!!! "Your Excellency, Mr President. I greet you in the name of the many thousands of people in Britain who stood against the tide and opposed the war and aggression against Iraq and continue to oppose the war by economic means which is aimed to strangle the life out of the great people of Iraq. "I greet you too, in the name of the Palestinian people…..I thought the President would appreciate to know that even today, three years after the war, I still meet families who are calling their newborn sons Saddam…Sir, I salute your courage, your strength your indefatigability. And I want you to know that we are with you until victory, until victory until Jerusalem." (The Times, 20th January , 1994)

Another thing that seems to defy logic is the argument that Newsweek is retracting the story due to political pressure. If the press were this pliable all of the reports that gave rise to major scandals involving the administration in power - like Watergate - would have been retracted by whoever reported them. In the case of Watergate, the capacity of the executive to influence news coverage and intimidate the press under Nixon was at least as great as it is today - if not more so - yet the story was anything but submarined. Ditto for the Iran-Contra scandal, the Lewinsky scanal, etc. If Newsweek had solid information to back the story up with the odds that they would capitulate to pressure from the executive branch are very low indeed. Moreover, if the administration communicated threats to Newsweek concerning the story - they would probably use make them a major story in their own right and subsequently use them to further authenticate the claims that they advanced in the original story. And finally, how - exactly - would the adminstration actually threaten a major publication? Seriously. What could they do? Have the Army discontinue their advertisements, which might constitute 1/1000th of Newsweeks advertising revenue - at most? The claim that Newsweek is backing down in the face of some nefarious subterfuge by the sinister masterminds in the White House is a model of the paranoia that seems to has the contemporary Left taking making the black helicopter set on the right looking like models of judicious reasoning and restraint. I'm just waiting for someone to do the usual furtive whispering about Karl Rove planning the whole thing in advance. Bring on the paranoid delirium.

I guess it all comes down to whether or not you consider personal belief or factual evidence the most compelling ground to base your convictions on in this particular matter. I don't know whether the allegations are true or not, but - going back to Stonehead's post - if we are going to bother interrogating detainees the fact of the matter is that some sort of coercion is going to be necessary. If we decide that we're against that as a nation - then we should modify our policies, or opt for a Machiavellian middle ground in which we simply send them back to their home countries for the full bore medieval treatment and record what their interrogators tell us - which is likely happening to some degree already. For my part, as I said above - I think that we'd be better off strategically if we abandoned the millitary tribunals, swore to uphold the Geneva Accord in full even when dealing with the most despicable and demonstrably guilty terrorists, and generally played the international PR game - as the information obtained under duress is of limited value when compared to the larger strategic damage done by not at least pretending to abide by the same conventions that the rest of the world pretends to abide by - even though I suspect that any country that finds itself in the sights of suicide bombings that kill thousands of its citizens will take the gloves off in short order, no matter what standards they claim to abide by in public. But back to the original topic. I think that if the allegations are true - the most disturbing part of the story to me is that flushing a Koran down the toilet is such a poor interrogation tactic in this case, as it would only strengthen the resolve of a Jihadi to resist to the end. If we really wanted to get these guys to talk, I think that setting up a mini-vegas down there and with unlimited alcohol, hookers, sunshine, and every comfort imaginable would be far more effective....

Also note that... Released Detainees Rejoining The Fight By John Mintz Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, October 22, 2004; Page A01 At least 10 detainees released from the Guantanamo Bay prison after U.S. officials concluded they posed little threat have been recaptured or killed fighting U.S. or coalition forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to Pentagon officials. One of the repatriated prisoners is still at large after taking leadership of a militant faction in Pakistan and aligning himself with al Qaeda, Pakistani officials said....... In telephone calls to Pakistani reporters, he has bragged that he tricked his U.S. interrogators into believing he was someone else. Abdullah Mehsud told reporters he fooled authorities at Guantanamo Bay for two years before his release. (AP File Photo) Another returned captive is an Afghan teenager who had spent two years at a special compound for young detainees at the military prison in Cuba, where he learned English, played sports and watched videos, informed sources said. U.S. officials believed they had persuaded him to abandon his life with the Taliban, but recently the young man, now 18, was recaptured with other Taliban fighters near Kandahar, Afghanistan, according to the sources, who asked for anonymity because they were discussing sensitive military information. The cases demonstrate the difficulty Washington faces in deciding when alleged al Qaeda and Taliban detainees should be freed, amid pressure from foreign governments and human rights groups that have denounced U.S. officials for detaining the Guantanamo Bay captives for years without due-process rights, military officials said. "Reports that former detainees have rejoined al Qaeda and the Taliban are evidence that these individuals are fanatical and particularly deceptive," said a Pentagon spokesman, Navy Lt. Cmdr. Flex Plexico. "From the beginning, we have recognized that there are inherent risks in determining when an individual detainee no longer had to be held at Guantanamo Bay." The latest case emerged two weeks ago when two Chinese engineers working on a dam project in Pakistan's lawless Waziristan region were kidnapped. The commander of a tribal militant group, Abdullah Mehsud, 29, told reporters by satellite phone that his followers were responsible for the abductions. Mehsud said he spent two years at Guantanamo Bay after being captured in 2002 in Afghanistan fighting alongside the Taliban. At the time he was carrying a false Afghan identity card, and while in custody he maintained the fiction that he was an innocent Afghan tribesman, he said. U.S. officials never realized he was a Pakistani with deep ties to militants in both countries, he added. "I managed to keep my Pakistani identity hidden all these years," he told Gulf News in a recent interview. Since his return to Pakistan in March, Pakistani newspapers have written lengthy accounts of Mehsud's hair and looks, and the powerful appeal to militants of his fiery denunciations of the United States. "We would fight America and its allies," he said in one interview, "until the very end." Last week Pakistani commandos freed one of the abducted Chinese engineers in a raid on a mud-walled compound in which five militants and the other hostage were killed. The 10 or more returning militants are but a fraction of the 202 Guantanamo Bay detainees who have been returned to their homelands. Of that group, 146 were freed outright, and 56 were transferred to the custody of their home governments. Many of those men have since been freed. Mark Jacobson, a former special assistant for detainee policy in the Defense Department who now teaches at Ohio State University, estimated that as many as 25 former detainees have taken up arms again. "You can't trust them when they say they're not terrorists," he said. A U.S. defense official who helps oversee the prisoners added: "We could have said we'll accept no risks and refused to release anyone. But we've regarded that option as not humane, and not practical, and one that makes the U.S. government appear unreasonable." Another former Guantanamo Bay prisoner was killed in southern Afghanistan last month after a shootout with Afghan forces. Maulvi Ghafar was a senior Taliban commander when he was captured in late 2001. No information has emerged about what he told interrogators in Guantanamo Bay, but in several cases U.S. officials have released detainees they knew to have served with the Taliban if they swore off violence in written agreements. Returned to Afghanistan in February, Ghafar resumed his post as a top Taliban commander, and his forces ambushed and killed a U.N. engineer and three Afghan soldiers, Afghan officials said, according to news accounts. A third released Taliban commander died in an ambush this summer. Mullah Shahzada, who apparently convinced U.S. officials that he had sworn off violence, rejoined the Taliban as soon as he was freed in mid-2003, sources with knowledge of his situation said. The Afghan teenager who was recaptured recently had been kidnapped and possibly abused by the Taliban before he was apprehended the first time in 2001. After almost three years living with other young detainees in a seaside house at Guantanamo Bay, he was returned in January of this year to his country, where he was to be monitored by Afghan officials and private contractors. But the program failed and he fell back in with the Taliban, one source said. "Someone dropped the ball in Afghanistan," the source said. One former detainee who has not yet been able to take up arms is Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane, a Dane who also signed a promise to renounce violence. But in recent months he has told Danish media that he considers the written oath "toilet paper," stated his plans to join the war in Chechnya and said Denmark's prime minister is a valid target for terrorists. Human rights activists said the cases of unrepentant militants do not undercut their assertions that the United States is violating the rights of Guantanamo Bay inmates. "This doesn't alter the injustice, or support the administration's argument that setting aside their rights is justified," said Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for Amnesty International.

I think that one factor that's working in nuclear power's favor, at least with respect to subsidies, is its output (wattage). However - given the massive public investment in nuclear power over the course of the preceding decades -I'd prefer to see the bulk of the public investment in energy R&D go towards improving efficiency, and wind, solar, etc.

At the risk of sounding like a fool, here are my thoughts concerning the real issue, which I see as not about media, but about our conduct during war: The question is whether these actions were part of a concerted effort to humiliate and degrade in order to compel the prisoners to break down and yield. Or, were these actions simply a cruel and unusual punishment, sadistic in nature? With regard to the former, the issue arises whether the means was justified by the end goal. I personally don’t know the value of the information obtained under mental and physical duress, but it seems the larger repercussion of a negative global image is of a greater consequence to the security of our nation and to our interests around the world. I’m sure there are some who would argue this is really an issue of the control of information. However, if it is the latter case, which has been provided as the official line, then it appears that the ‘dogs’ just got out of control. Lower level soldiers were the only ones convicted of unlawful conduct with the lone exception of a commissioned National Guard officer who was reprimanded for not being fully aware of the situation. ..... Is this what Sun Tzu (The Art of War) refers to when he discusses the importance of moral influence in overcoming an adversary, which I actually believe, in this case to be a war between elements of ‘Progressive Modernity’ and ‘Regressive Religious Fundamentalism’? Good post. My own take is that the information that you get from forced confessions and/or detention centers isn't worth the PR hit that the US takes in the process of doing so, which in turn makes it more difficult to accomplish the larger strategic goal, which is containing and neutralizing a regressive religious fundamentalism which has the anhillation of the West in general and the US in particular as one of its stated purposes.

HOME >> NEWS What Did The Democrats Say About Iraq's WMD -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JANUARY 30, 2004 "Without question, we need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime ... He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation ... And now he is miscalculating America's response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction ... So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real..." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Jan. 23. 2003 | Source "I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force -- if necessary -- to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." - Sen. John F. Kerry (D, MA), Oct. 9, 2002 | Source "One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line." - President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998 | Source "If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program." - President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998 | Source "We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction." - Madeline Albright, Feb 1, 1998 | Source "He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983." - Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998 | Source "[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs." Letter to President Clinton. - (D) Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, others, Oct. 9, 1998 | Source "Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process." - Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998 | Source "Hussein has ... chosen to spend his money on building weapons of mass destruction and palaces for his cronies." - Madeline Albright, Clinton Secretary of State, Nov. 10, 1999 | Source "We begin with the common belief that Saddam Hussein is a tyrant and a threat to the peace and stability of the region. He has ignored the mandate of the United Nations and is building weapons of mass destruction and th! e means of delivering them." - Sen. Carl Levin (D, MI), Sept. 19, 2002 | Source "We know that he has stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 | Source "Iraq's search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to deter and we should assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power." - Al Gore, Sept. 23, 2002 | Source "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Ted Kennedy (D, MA), Sept. 27, 2002 | Source "The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons..." - Sen. Robert Byrd (D, WV), Oct. 3, 2002 | Source "There is unmistakable evidence that Saddam Hussein is working aggressively to develop nuclear weapons and will likely have nuclear weapons within the next five years ... We also should remember we have always underestimated the progress Saddam has made in development of weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, WV), Oct 10, 2002 | Source "In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including al Qaeda members ... It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." - Sen. Hillary Clinton (D, NY), Oct 10, 2002 | Source "We are in possession of what I think to be compelling evidence that Saddam Hussein has, and has had for a number of years, a developing capacity for the production and storage of weapons of mass destruction." - Sen. Bob Graham (D, FL), Dec. 8, 2002 | Source

Well - that's better. I seem to recall the effects that the sanctions were having on the Iraqi population having similar effects to those attributed to the invasion. The suffering induced seemed to play a significant role in making the US less popular in the Arab world, was oft menitioned as a potent recruting tool for Al-Queda - as was the presence of significant numbers of American troops in Saudi Arabia - and - seemed to be enabling Hussein to further consolidate his control over the state, to the further detriment of the Iraqi people, and of course there's the fact that he would still be in power. If you think that's better - that's a defensible position, but its not without its downsides and complications - some of which you've acknowledged. I'm also not sure how this has benefitted the Iranians or the North Koreans, unless one accepts that we would seriously contemplate a land-invasion of either country rather than selective bombing of nuclear weapons sites - which are still well within our capabilities - seeing as the Air Force and Navy are not unduly engaged in Iraq. Also not sure how the situation benefits the Saudis, but I'd be interested in hearing that argument.

I think that Chuck is largely correct concerning why this story hasn't generated much of a response from anyone. I have already stated my case here ad infinitum - which essentially boiled down to the removal of Hussein and his regime by force as the least of many evils, the remainder of which were a variation on either mantaining the embargo/inspections indefinitely or dropping the matter and leaving the regime to go about its business without serious interference. Most serious people seemed to agree that all of the options had serious potential downsides, and made their choices in light of the potential consequences that would flow from them. I would have likely disagreed with someone who was arguing for something else as the least of many evils, but the very fact that they were willing to undertake a sober analysis of the situation and make their judgement in light of the fact that there was no cost-free solution to the problems posed by the regime - but if their argument was solid and sincere I would respect their opinion quite a bit more than that of someone who hadn't bothered to do so. Ditto for those who are campaigning for an immediate removal of American troops from Iraq without acknowledging the likely consequences of such a move. What I have never seen on this board, as far as I can recall, is much in the way of serious considerations of the implications of maintaining the inspections/embargo or, essentially abandoning both and seeing what happens by the people opposing the invasion, who were thereby endorsing one of the other two options by default. The same goes for a hasty removal of the American troops. In this particular case - the implicit argument is that since the regime did not have a stockpile of WMD's in 2001, then simply maintaining the embargo/inspections and the oil for food program or essentially abandoning both would have obviated any threat from the regime in the future. Given what is now known about the oil for food progam and what has long been known about the regime, that might not be a terribly easy position to defend, but if that's your take on things, why not say so outright? That kind of a discussion would be interesting and worth participating in. Being subjected to the usual rehash of tired one-liners and articles of faith along the lines of "No blood for oil!" etc isn't.