MtnGoat

"how about having a policy that is fair handed and takes into account the needs of the locals? if you want people's trust, you have to demonstrate your are trustworthy. Just saying so and behaving otherwise is not convincing." Yet your questions seem to claim that saying so isn't enough and we will not be permitted to show we'll do what we intend. How are we supposed to do what we say, when we are not permitted to say and then do? I'm not sure what policy on Iraq you think takes into accout the needs of those locals, because you haven't told me what your ideas are. Other than policies which take their needs into account and do what we say. That is not specific. If it is, my contending that we will get rid of Saddam while taking their needs into account ought to be specific enough. "hogwash! we have control over both the embargo and going to war. It's not either or, by any stretch of logic." Then give us an outline for some kind of action, more specific than "taking their needs into account". "on the contrary, it means no attacks inside the US, which *is* the national interest. It does not take a genius to realize it." What if this supposition is incorrect? I have to admit though, you're doing better with answering direct questions. Thanks for that.

"how convenient! and you promiss we won't make any mistake this time, right?" I am at a loss to determine what you want as a sufficient answer. If we are to be held chained to a particular view because of what was done in the past, no change is possible anyway, because no one should trust us and therefore no example of changes can be permitted. "I don't feel that I have to respond to your grim accounting of a no-win situation for the people of that region but I'll humor you. The choice is not killing 100,000's of individuals through sanctions versus killing 100,000's through war, but effectively how to foster democracy in the middle east even if it means placing our own interest in that region on the back burner." Of course you do not wish to account for that grim calculus, because the condition you seem to be claiming exists, in which no innocents die, is not factual. You have not rebutted this, no matter how grim it is, because you can't. Unfortunately ignoring grim situations doesn't change their existense. Nor does it defuse the falsity of anyone claiming that not going to war will mean no innocents die. I asked you for specifically for an idea on how to end this problem, and you have no answer. You claim we should be effectively placing democracy at the head of our policy, but cannot show what "effective" policy this is, nor how you define effective. When we set national interest aside, does that mean accepting more attacks inside the US? What is appropriate in that situation, in your enlightened, non specified effective policy?

"In fact the means fully condition the end result." I'll assume this means you are not in favor of specifically awarding jobs by race, or college entry points, or anything else where a state or one of it's agencies specifically uses racism to fix racism.

no, that's saddams excuse. We destroyed all those weapons you caught us with before 98, and burned the paperwork on them at the same time. No, you can't see the sites, we don't remember where they are. No, you can't look for breakdown products of the burned chemicals, the dog ate them.

not bad. Glad to see they're not going to play the role suggested for them by their native population of cheese eating appeasement monkeys.

"First of all, I find it to be amazing that the Iraqis have complied as well as they have." I'm amazed you consider the nearly entire lack of compliance, compliance "as well as they have" in any sense. They continue to violate terms by attacking oversight aircraft they agreed to in the terms, they have not produced the evidence of their weapons as required, the previous round of inspectors had to go find it, they have not produced the proof of destruction as required in this round, they have hidden weapons and documents in violation of the terms, they have attempted to purchase banned items such as radiactive materials, and that's the list I come up with immediately. I'm not sure how this becomes "complying as well as they have", when the compliance is for all intents and purposes non existent. "with conditions that were virtually impossible to comply with." What is virtually impossible about listing your weapons, and providing evidence of destruction while allowing oversight? What's difficult about not seeking fissionable materials, or not firing on aircraft? The only sense in which this is virtually impossible is in that they were unwilling to comply.

"so if we supported him while being fully conscious of what he was up to, what has changed about us? how are we establishing the credibility of our alleged motives?" by removing the problem we created. I answered your question, I'd appreciate some answers on mine.

"Set conditions. Fair conditions. Ones that a rational mind can agree to." and enforce them how? what makes you think he'll follow new conditions?

"what do you mean by 'not at all'? during the 80's Iraq had our financial, political, and military support (all approved by Rumsfeld by the way)." it means I am not denying we supported them in the 80's. I may not agree with everything you may claim, but it's well known we did so. "Is this another case of your chronic lapse of conciousness?" Not at all. Merely a case of your chronically prickly style of reading intent into folks who disagree with you. Maybe you need to issue your list of j-b approved response words and phrases so others won't need to deal with this. "most death occurring now in Iraq are due to sanctions and the 91 gulf war. We should do everything we can to get rid of Saddam (as we always should have), but in the interest of being consistent, not create greater hardship for the people we purport to defend." So we should do everything we can, but the sanctions are killing them, but we shouldn't actually remove Saddam next month. This is exactly the kind of "effectiveness" I'm talking about. "Everything we can" means causing deaths via sanctions, fully admitting it, yet being afraid to cause deaths to end it it all. I say every option leads to civilian deaths, you say it's largely the sanctions, I say you have not yet proved me wrong, you've only supported my point. In fact you have added to it, because you seem to be saying should not personally kill Iraquis, when that is *exactly* what we are doing with sanctions. It seems it's more peaceful to kill them with sanctions. "oh please! You know as well as I do what the verdict is for someone firing a gun in a crowded theater, and it's not ruled accidental." The verdict depends on who fired, who was hit, if anyone was hurt, why, and so on. What is the verdict for locking people in a closet with a sadist for 12 years, while trying to starve the sadist? Is that an accident? You do not seem to be getting the point here, no matter which way you cut it we are causing these deaths, and there is no option in which they do not occur, even if we withdraw sanctions and do not attack the deaths will occur by saddams hand. You point out bombing deaths and point out sanction deaths, point out our aid to Saddam in the 80's, and then want no death and Saddam removed. Welcome to fantasyland. Better this situation should end as soon as possible.

"what these pictures can't hide is the fact that we were in bed with him while these murders and many others were committed." what none of us can change is the past, wether what you claim is true or not. Let's assume everything you claim is true. Does this mean we should now stand back and allow him to continue doing what he is doing? The end result of the responsibility you claim we have for his actions is taking no action? You seem to be uncomfortable with the idea that no option which currently exists leaves us with no innocent Iraquis dying. Perhaps you could explain the moves you support that places us in a situation where say 3 months from now, no more innocent Iraquis die.

"does this imply we had nothing to do with Saddam staying in power while we had full knowledge of what he was up to? " Not at all. "or is it that since people will die we might as well do the killing ourselves for our purpose?" Yes. Our purpose (ending Saddam's ownership of WMD) coincides with their purpose, getting rid of him. We have a reason to want him gone, they certainly do, that our reasons overlap do not mean they are not valid ones. It's very nice to figure you're in favor of no civilians dying, I am certainly in that camp. but the plain fact is, they're dying now, and with no end in sight given the "effectiveness" of current UN methods. Some folks will unavoidably be killed by accident, he kills them on purpose. When the war is over, or he is gone, his intentional killing will be at and end. The unintentional and tragic deaths we will cause will be over quickly, the fully intentional ones he causes have the possibility of extending many years into the future. Ignoring that people are already dying, and that there is no option where they don't, does not exactly indicate a situation where one faction here can claim the actions they support lead to no Iraqui civilian deaths. Each and every one does. Shall they die for nothing, gutted in a basement intentionally, leading to no changes and more hapless souls there in that basement, next week, next month, next year, extending until Saddam drops (and maybe not even then), or for a reason, unintentionally, where the end result is an end to torture and murder in a few weeks?

"They know that they're next on the list after we clean up from our session on Iraq so they might as well provocate now and try to get something for it. Which they did." What did they get?

"Why is Israel so sacred that you can totally overlook its bullying colonialist activity, and instead insist that we protect it regardless of its behavior." Because not protecting it will mean it's destruction. It's behavior has been moderated due to our influence, without our restraints imposed on them it's likely they would be even more dogmatic about their defenses. I am not saying we should overlook the settlement problem, but that does not mean they should not be protected either. Wether or not protecting them alienates us from those who wish to kill them is not a consideration. I do not measure things by who actions alienate, because that places you in the position of judging issues by what others will think ,of instead of what the corrrect action is. Others can decide what to do on their own. "Leave Palestine out of your answer, please, focusing only on your rationale for protecting Israel at all costs in the face of alienating a large part of the rest of the world. " You want me to constrain my answer so tightly it only mentions the Israelis, which is impossible since then I could only discuss Israeli actions which do not involve Palestinians, and that cannot involve settlement issues or conflicts with them. I did not mention them by name, that will have to be good enough. Isreals relations with it's neighbors cannot be separated out from the neighbors themselves.

"Get the world thinking that "hey they're helping people all over, they're not just war mongers"." They ought to think that, since that's the case. Seems these people do need reminding how much food aid, and other aid, come from the US, and much is privately funded via donation, a sign of direct personal moral commitment, which is not so for aid provided via govt.

"In the meantime, the current electric/gasoline hybrid vehicles get ignored, even though they are a much more timely means of reducing our dependence on oil. Big oil wins again!" Get ignored? And here I thought there were at least two, with a few more in the pipeline if people actually choose them. They're sitting on the lot waiting for you to go down and buy one, and get a tax credit for doing so to boot.

"Why are the Saudis, Egyptians, assorted Kuwaitis (since they keep killing our citizens) against us? It's our blind, unilateral support of Israel! " Gee blind unilateral support of not allowing these nations to obliterate Israel, as they tried multiple times? Gosh, who'da thunk we'd be such bastards.

"Please don't so blithely elide over the Iraqi civilians who would be killed for no reason" Iraquis are killed for no reason anyway. This is not a situation in which one option results in no dead Iraqui civilians. If we go to war, some will be accidentally killed. If we do not, Saddam will continue to kill more intentionally. In case of war, the deaths will be accidental and then cease when the war ends, and all the folks who would have been gutted and raped in dark basements tomorrow, next week, and next year, will still be alive. We do not have the luxury of choosing an option where no Iraqui civilians will die, we do have the opportunity to choose an option where the dying will end ASAP.

Allison on tax cuts and increased revenue in the 90's "Actually this is partially true, we ran up a huge deficit, incurred a large debt." I disagree. You are not showing that cuts didn't result in increased income, only that the increased income was then spent even faster than it came in. The record does in fact show that total revenue climbed, regardless of how it was spent. "Also, it has been proven that cutting taxes for middle income taxpayers is more effective at stimulating the economy than cutting the top tax payers taxes, which shifts the burden to lower income tax payers." When was this proven? And how does one shift the burden of an income tax to lower income payers, most of whom do not pay any income taxes at all, and many of whom get earned income credits, money back when they paid no income tax in the first place? By definition, a tax cut can only happen if you pay income tax in the first place, of course an income tax cut will only effect those who pay income taxes. Now if we're talking the SS/payroll tax, then that's a different story. If the Dems want to support an across the board cut there, I'm all for it.

S-C: "Newsflash, Mtgoat, I didn't like Clinton; I didn't like his use of the military." Newsflash, I don't care if you didn't like Clinton! I never asked if you liked him, I asked for your thoughts on his use of the military given his non service. Thanks for the answer, it's consistent with your criticism of Dubya. And yeah, I guess I'm old-fashioned: If someone wants something as serious as war, then I really really really think that that someone should have the courage and conviction to serve in the war effort, risking as much as the front-line soldiers. " This means only former military personell should serve as president, and that non military personell have no place determining military usage. "Recently heard something about congressional members' off-spring not serving. Do you have info to the contrary? I'd love to hear it...." I find the chance that out of 635 members of congress, not one has any children serving, vanishly small. Especially given that many members themselves have service records. I will not claim I have proof and I'm not going to look it up either, I will suggest that this statistic is bogus anyway given the former two reasons. "And I believe it was Bush Sr. who flew jets. I think his son flopped around Texas in the National Guard, getting his nose white and his dick red." No, senior flew in WW2. Dubya flew jets.

col von spanker on terrorist nations: "So is Ireland, are we going to war with them? And isn't Saudi Arabia a terrorist nation too? A majority of the WTC fuckers were from there." We've made it clear war is reserved for cases where other methods do not work. Ireland helped with chasing it's terrorists, the Saudis we can also work with without going to that degree, so far anyway.

"we're not talking about Clinton," You may not be, but that seems to be a fortunate exclusion for someone commenting on Bush as a dodger and then complaining about him commiting troops. Clinton didn't serve in the armed forces at all, yet he ordered troops about in many actions, and one war not OK'd by the UN. What was your thinking on his use of the military, if Bush has no buisness using it? "and many know Bush's record: Texas Air Guard with a domestic assignment that he went AWOL from for over a year with no repercussions." Are you claiming people in the NG are not actual service members? And I'll ask my other question again, are you saying someone only has moral authority to ask others to do something if they have done it themselves?

"How dare he get up there and decide where our troops get "used", when he dodged," Now that's interesting, I was under the impression he flew jets. So tell us, how did you feel about a real dodger, in the form of one Bill Clinton, telling us about his concern for the troops as he sent some to die in Somalia, for example? Then we have the underlying problem with your stance that's the best one, that somehow one can't really tell someone else to do something they haven't done themselves. Is that your position, or am I misreading it? In order to support using troops, must I personally suit up and head for Iraq to validate my position? "and not a single one of the rich war-mongering politician's off-spring will be serving." You're telling me you somehow "know" that "not a single one" of any rich war monger has a child in any of the services? That's a pretty big claim.

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trask, your current avatar is my fav. It's hard to concentrate on pissing you off when Missy McRack is showing off her cleavage.

It's anyone's right to commit suicide, if they think someone will not thumb the firing switch or bomb release because they are standing in the way, I guess this will provide a good example of natural selection.