On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 13:13:15 -0500, B.B. u wrote:
In article ,
Dave Hinz wrote:

Perhaps. Nobody can really show that the lack of an attack on the US
is the result of this war.

It's certainly debatable, yes. But the stated goal and the result are
the same.

No, it's not debatable, it's impossible to show that the war
prevented another attack.

I keep agreeing with that, but that was one of the stated goals, and it
has so far been true.

That's why nobody has been able to show it
aside from repeating it again and again in the hopes it'll be accepted
as fact by enough people.

And nobody has been able to show there are no WMD in Iraq. "We can't
find them because we gave him time to hide them" doesn't equal "They
aren't there".

What military? Um, news flash: the guys who ran away during the major
combat operations, just might be the same ones bombing trucks giving out
candy to Iraqi children today.

His military didn't run from us in Gulf War 1 until it was hammered
into the sand. His military ran away from us in GW 2 before a shot was
fired in many places. Does that not sound like a decay to you? Not to
mention a glaring absence of heavy equipment during the "battles."

They decided on a different tactic - dissolve and reform - rather than
the known ineffective one of stand & fight & die that they used last
time. Seems more effective this time.

BTW, Saddam isn't building the IEDs that are being used now. Saddam
had control up until we invaded, so whatever has gone on since isn't
relevant to what Saddam was doing.

Saddam isn't all of his organization, just as OBL isn't all of _his_.

Dunno--I left a while back when I got bored to tears with the game.

Same here; I abandoned a 70-something barb and a 60's druid with nice
gear. Ah well. PNF long, long ago I'm sure. Been playing civ3 lately,
oddly enough, waiting for the Harry Potter release tomorrow morning.

Yeah, I got to where I was only logging on to keep my dudes from
expiring, then I didn't even keep up with that. Once my favorite
sorceress (Amee: level 93 or 94) went poof I had pretty much no urge to
bother any more.

Well, it was a good game for a while but the 1.10 delays were
frustrating, and once it finally came out it was underwhelming. I think
that's the point where I kind of said "screw it".

Well, she came and went from time to time, didn't she? Seemed like a
pretty level-headed person, good moderating influence for the kiddies in
the group.

Agreed. I used to talk with her pretty regularly on AIM. Good
therapy.

I also like how she could come in and do the "mom" thing if the group
got a bit too rambunctious.

Yeah, I know it's our money. Whoopie. the action is worldwide, so
the results need to take into account the entire world. Looking at the
entire world, it's a failure.

Well, OK, show me a followup on the scale of 9/11/01 anywhere in the
world, then. I think it's getting better.

9/11 is a blip pretty far off the main line. If you want to set your
threshold as high as that, OK, there's been no terrorism in the world,
ever, except 9/11.

I also didn't say that. We were promised events which would dwarf 9/11.
Rhetoric, certainly, but the fact that they clearly have the desire, and
have been denied the means, is a good thing. I can think of a dozen
things off the top of my head which would be worse, so the absence of
followup can't be from lack of ideas or from lack of desires. That
leaves "opportunity".

But if you're willing to settle for a more reasonable threshold,
Spain and England both come to mind. Plus the daily attacks in Iraq.

Well, to be honest, I'd rather that the terrorists are fighting and
dying in Iraq, than that they were doing the same in the US. Spain was
done specifically to change the outcome of their elections, and sadly,
it worked. London, I'm not sure has been linked to AQ yet; the chemist
they arrested allegedly has no ties, unless something has changed in the
last 24-48 hours since I looked at it.

Good point. Part of the justification for the war was that Saddam
could not prove he had no WMD, so we invaded. You understand that we
made an impossible request, right?

Well, it's not like he didn't agree to the terms originally, at the end
of the first little party over there, that he'd get rid of 'em and
record those activities, and let the inspectors and observers in. He
failed on all those points. Maybe if nothing else, the lesson is "If
you've got the nasties, and don't prove that you really destroyed 'em,
be prepared to face a hell of an audit committee". I don't believe for
a second that he didn't hide or export them, though.

OK, so he lied. BFD--dictators lie all the time, it's par for the
course. If we went and invaded every dictatorship that lied at a cost
of $1.25billion per week, we'd be hopelessly swamped with warfare and
debt before making a dent.

Well, maybe we should just pick the ones who, you know, have been at war
with us previously, and who are likely to have weapons that we don't
want used against us. Oh, and let's just do the winnable ones.

Also, North Korea fits that description, but we've done nothing. If
we're trying to send a message, we've hosed it royally.

Well, better that he screw up in Iraq than with N. Korea, I think. I
wonder; if war does get re-started there, given that there was never a
peace treaty, does the US need a declaration of war, or does the
original, never revoked one still stand? It's still just a truce, after
all.

For that matter, was there ever a peace treaty after GW1?

What nasties? There ain't any.

Then where did they go, exactly? You don't know; I don't know; but they
didn't just evaporate. And the Sarin shell(s) that injured some of our
guys weren't supposed to exist, but I'm thinking there are a few troops
who have direct personal experience indicating that they do.

The shells that we were hit with were old, according to the reports
about them.

Yes, but they are a non-zero example of WMD in Iraq, and are dismissed
out of hand.

The most plausible explanation I've heard so far is that
they were duds dug up at a test range and incorporated into IEDs--the
assemblers thinking they were conventional weaponry.

But they're examples of WMD that were there, and were not destroyed, and
were not accounted for. That's just the alleged "innocent mistakes";
what about the ones that we gave him years to hide, either inside or
outside the country?

It amazes me that a guy who supposedly was such a terrible leader he
couldn't provide electricity

Well, that was by his choice, not by his inability.

was also skilled enough to completely hide
all evidence of WMD development and go so far as to create a body of
evidence that would fool the inspectors into believing he had just let
his WMD programs rot. There seems to be a strong dichotomy there.

His priorities were on weapons, not his people. Seems pretty clear
to me?

But what there is a lot of is
evidence that Saddam and OBL were enemies and even if Saddam did have
the nasties they were unlikely to get to OBL in a condition that could
be redeployed.

Well, there's enemies, and then there's enemies. Iran and Iraq have
been enemies, but if we threatened them, they'd probably be (uneasy?)
allies. Germany and the US are nominally, allegedly allies but I
wouldn't bet that during my lifetime, or that of my kids, that won't
change. If they saw a common enemy and a way to join resources to
attack more effectively, I don't think their differences would stop
them. AQ's presence in Iraq seems to back this theory up.

AQ was in the US on 9/11. Does that make AQ and the US allies?

Of course not. What's your point?

Apparenly they're also allies with Spain and Britain.

I recognize and reject your failed rhetorical tactic.

AQ's presence in Iraq does not seem to back your theory up any more
than it backs the notion that AQ, the US, Spain, and Britain are in
cahoots.

(shrug) OK, whatever. They're there, fighting against us, with some
Iraqis. My point was that they could work together against us, and the
rest of that point is "Good thing we kept them from getting the WMD".

Whoopie. Hey, Clinton got us through a few years without any attacks
on US soil, but you don't call that a success. Why is it not success
for Clinton, but it would be success for Bush?

Well, during Clinton things kept getting worse, and he went from
objecting, to objecting strongly, to objecting very strongly, to blowing
up a tent and two camels. This weak response is, I feel, what made the
escalation happen.

IIRC, there was one terrorist attack on US soil in Clinton's time,
(WTC, 2/26/1993) and there has been one during Bush's time.

AQ was attacking US interests around the world on an increasing level
during Clinton's administration. USS Cole, and all those. Since
Clinton didn't respond to those other than in "objecting most strongly",
he showed the weakess that was then the cause of AQ deciding to get more
aggressive and attack us here. Weak response=event here. Strong
response=event elsewhere. I prefer them elsewhere.

Pretty much any country that has been pounded, threatened, and left
flared up into a problem all over again. Like Germany after WWI and
into WWII. After WWII we decided to be more charitable and reward the
chunk of the population that would listen to us. They, on their own,
squeezed out the chunk of the population that wouldn't listen.

That's what I'm _saying_. Here's some help, the rest is up to you.

This "last ditch" has been going on for two years now. I think at
some point it's safe to assume it's a

I'm sure it's the military which "ran away". And I'm not sure either of
us know if it's getting better, or worse, really.

I know there are more casualties per week this week than a few weeks
ago.

True. Maybe we should draw a line in the sand.

Even Kerry admitted that now that we're in it, we're in it until we're
done and it's going to take many years.

Kerry is an idiot and I have never supported him. How is it
acceptable to "stay the course" when you know your map's backwards?

Like I said, I'd rather say "There ya go, don't **** up again." But,
given the choices we had last election, both of 'em acknowledged that
now that we're in the soup, we've got to get to a certain point before
bailing.

But is that acceptable? I know they both said it, but I think both
of them are goddamned fools. I believe Kerry was just saying it because
he thought he could win by doing so, and Bush said it because that's
what he plans to do. But I don't think it's acceptable.

Well, what alternative is there at this point?

Ah, so here's a link:
http://www.thiefsden.net/archives/000073.html

As long as Bush is in charge I'll hold him responsible for the
actions he takes--regardless of who his inspiration was. Bush ordered
this war, bush started this war, and Bush is keeping it going.

And so many democrats made the same justifications, and voted to
authorize the military action.

influence them they are powerless to change policy. So it's a whole lot
more productive to bash the republicans.

Is it?

Yeah. If I successfully bash the democrats, nothing
changes--everyone bashes the democrats and they're out of power anyway.
OTOH, successfully bashing the republicans will get them tossed out of
office and there's a possibility that things will change as a result.

"Do something, anything"? I submit that sometimes "nothing" is a better
course of action than the wrong "something".

It's not certain, but it's possible. And with a guy like Dean in charge
of the party it's even more likely that any new democrats who get
elected will be anti-war.
When you played king of the hill, who did you push? The guy on top,
or the guy who just fell off?

Maybe figuring out how to work with whoever is on top might be a plan?
I sure as hell didn't like, respect, or trust Clinton, but that didn't
mean I was trying to push him down.

The quotes put them in charge of the military? Explain to me how
this amazing process works.

Both sides said he had WMD, and both sides voted to authorize the
military. That's my point. The quotes show this.

OK, both sides voted for this. Do both sides give the military their
orders?

Um, by authorizing military action, yes they do.

It's quite thorough and quite accurate (as far as I can tell) and
quite unrelated to me or what I'm saying.

Not if you're just blaming the republicans. It was a shared decision.

I blame them both--we've covered that already. But I hold the
republicans responsible.

I'm missing the distinction?

You have the executive who made the decision to start shooting. He's
one of yours. My people caved, sure enough, and I'm extremely
displeased with that, but attacking democrats gets nothing done.
Attacking the republicans might.

I doubt it.

I doubt it, too. This whole country showed how ****ing stupid it was
in 2004.

The choice was between two less than ideal options.

But with the rest I know they
just voted for it so they wouldn't have to fight over that issue next
election cycle.
Both sides are full of sellouts, but one side has sellouts in charge,
which are far more dangerous.

Meh. If they all agreed, then they're all equally responsible.

That's not true. How can you be responsible for something you have
no power over?

They exercised their power in voting for it.

I mean, if you're driving down the road like a nut, kids
in the back seat cheering you on, when you get pulled over, do you
expect the cop to give the kids tickets too? No, that wouldn't make any
sense.

And yet, pretending that they were telling the driver not to do it would
be lying. It'd also be lying to pretend that, if they were driving,
they wouldn't have done the same thing.

Yeah, the democrats in congress agreed with the war for whatever
moronic reason, but they're not in charge of it. They can't add a few
more troops here and there, they can't set any deadlines, they can't
even force the Pentagon to armor plate their vehicles.

Do you really, really want to go there?

I just moved to Kenny Marchant's district and honestly don't know
much about him yet. But what I do know is that he had a hand in that
redistricting bull****,

That was a lovely little party, yes.

The good news is that the courts here in Texas are looking into
overturning that new map since it was strong-armed into law by a bunch
of guys who got elected with illegal corporate money.
Maybe we'll even string up DeLay.

I'm not sure that I'd see that as a problem.

might have had a little involvement with the
TRMPAC investigation that's following DeLay around, and he waves George
Bush's name around like gospel. I find none of that appealing. OTOH,
he does seem to be quite good about cutting government expenses and
streamlining government paperwork. At this point he's a wash.

Sometimes that's all you can hope for. About how I feel about Feingold.
He votes the way I would fairly often, but always for reasons that I
feel are wrong.

Yeah, that always has an icky feel to it.

It's a shame that the republicans ran someone against him last time who
wasn't up to the task.

Hard to say, but I do know that non-party-members don't get invited to,
for instance, campaign stops.

This thing wasn't by invitation. It was just announced in the
newspaper where and when he'd stop in and whoever wanted to would show
up. No security screening either--just a lot of cops wandering around.
I'll bet you a lathe or two that Bush will absolutely never do that.

No clue. And I only have the one lathe, so that's not an option.

So who would you say is being the bully in Iraq?

SH. He's out now, so once we get things stabilized there, we'll get
out. Personally, I'd prefer we get out sooner, give 'em notice to keep
the new guy in line or we'll come back again.

If he's out then he is no longer being the bully. So who would you
say is being the bully in Iraq now?

Nobody at the moment. If another one comes up, then we should take that
one out too. Eventually they'll catch on that they have to control
their own leadership.

I'd have to disagree. After all, we were discussing above us
threatening Iraq "We'll come back if you screw up again."

That's not bullying, that's a "behave and don't be a problem for us any
more or we'll prevent you, again, from getting out of hand". Threat?
Yeah, I guess so. But not bullying.

So what would be the next level of "bold" after throwing grenades at
an oncoming tank?

Attacking our country.

Bull****.

Well, attacking us there, is one thing. Attacking us here, is the next
higher thing, I think.

Attacking us here is easy. Attacking us there is hard. They just
don't need to attack us over here. Think about it--their goal with the
9/11 attack was split several ways: show us that they could manipulate
us with an attack, hurt us financially, and start a fight. Now that
we're in Iraq and stuck there, they've succeeded in starting a fight,
hurting us financially, and proving they could manipulate us.

If getting the snot bombed out of their country and the country of an
uneasy ally is "manipulating us", I suppose. Odd goal to have, though,
getting invaded.

Attacking us again would be pretty redundant. And keep in mind that
if they want to make a statement, their target audience is in the Middle
East, not the US. Any attack on us in Iraq gets all over the news in
the Middle East, where their support base is, whereas an attack on the
US would get on US news along with Middle East news. More news
coverage, but not really worth the effort.

I'm not sure I follow what you're saying, or if I am following it, that
I agree.

Not too busy for a quick little jaunt to Britain. Weren't too busy
for Spain either.

Have we actually found out that London was AQ?

That seems to be the consensus. And I didn't know we were even
restricting this to just AQ, I thought it was all global terrorism?
Whoever they were, they obviously weren't stopped by what's going on
in Iraq.

That much is true.

We also knew that they didn't like each other. Like going to war to
keep two north pole magnets apart.

Then why is AQ such a presence in Iraq? I contend that a common enemy
(us) united them against us, and that any activity against either would
have had the same result.

All three of us were mutual enemies. Who's to say Saddam wouldn't
have sided with the US against AQ as quickly as he would have sided with
AQ against the US?

Well, we have been at war with him, and he's more likely to save face
with the Muslim world by siding with a Muslim in a conflict, no?

Besides that, it's a lot easier to take on AQ within
your won country than it is to take on another country half way around
the world.

I'd rather they stay over there, thank you very much.

AQ is a presence in Iraq because it's a war zone. Those assholes
wanted a war with the US for years, and now they've got one.

Well, let's kill as many of them as we can, over there, so we don't have
to do it over here then.

They were alive, but they weren't figuring out how to kill our
military.

I'm not so sure of that.

Who in Iraq attacked the US prior to the invasion?

You said "figuring out", not "attacking".

I'm saying it shouldn't have happened, the guys to caused it are
****ups, and I have no faith that they'll turn this from a ****up into
anything measurably better than a complete failure.

Well, the US hasn't been attacked again, and no further attacks on the
scale of 9/11 have happened, so I think we're making progress.

OK, if your sufficiently selective, yes, the "WAR ON TERROR!" has
been a success. But if you broaden your horizons a bit, it's a failure.
An expensive, deadly failure.

If the US is doing the bulk of the work, and getting more benefit than
the others, well, the others could pitch in a bit more. Do I care if
we're not protecting, say, France? Not especially.