the false pretences in wich he forced us into war. is only 1 issue. the hypocrisy the lack of concern for the people he represent. the over concern for the 1% who don't need much concern. I could go on all day but I digress.

"the false pretences in wich he forced us into war. is only 1 issue... I could go on all day but I digress."

You've already started with two misstatements. So please, don't bore us with your digressing any further.

Zumbido, I have no problem with Bush policing terrorism behind the scenes. That's how the Brits were able to stop that recent plot, for example.

My problem is with Bush exacerbating the problem by invading Iraq - which he did with a rubber stamp from both houses, no question. He's militarized our foreign policy way beyond anything we've seen before, and that's created way more hatred toward us than the largely economic imperialism (backed up with military bases) that led to 9/11 in the first place. (This is more than anecdotal - there have actually been polls to confirm it.)

And I have a huge problem with the Republicans using terrorism as a political toy to get votes.

But I wouldn't stop there. Bush's energy policy, for example, is not leading us out of the problems that will eventually lead to the collapse of our civilization as we know it if we don't do anything about them. That's closely related to the Iraq war, of course.

What we should do about Iraq at this point I just don't know. We're damned if we stay and if we leave. We're not damned as badly as the innocent Iraqis are, though.

Yes, my earlier post was a joke and I'm amused so many of you didn't get it. I was trying to demonstrate the mentality of the Bush thinking, in a nutshell, the ends justify the means. I'm sure Nick and the rest of the liberal thinkers on here would have no problem with us invading Iraq if Bush had successfully annexed Saddam, pulled out our troops before any real harm was done and somehow magically the government there came together. I heard Cheney on Meet the Press over the weekend admit he never thought it would be this hard in Iraq. And today on 9/11 we sit around talking about how we're not any safer with Osama running around loose.

Here's the truth my DA7 brothers. All this War on Terror crap we brought on ourselves. Al Queda is a relatively small band of thugs that we can handle as we've always handled with covert ops. Every time we replay 9-11 on CNN or post a picture of Osama on CNN.com we only fan the flames. There is no war on terror - it's called common sense. We don't need a war and all this mass hysteria we've created. Referring to terrorists like it's a single entity is absurd. That's like saying the guy who smashes into your fender is the same as the one kidnapping your kids and we must eliminate all criminals. We need to chill out and stop this fear machine created by the Republicans as a way to get you to buy more laundry detergent.

I knew it wasn't serious, Justin, but I didn't know the reference - even though I think I saw that movie. Was it the one with Tom Cruise as a military lawyer?

Anyway, believe it or not I would still have had many problems with our having invaded Iraq even if it had been successful, mostly because of the way we went about it (although I'd have been a lot happier about it than I am now, of course). If the world needed Saddam Hussein gone, this should have been done through the UN just like the first Gulf war.

But that's irrelevant, because even people like me - just a private citizen and not a military intelligence expert - predicted what was going to happen. It was obvious that a country held together by force is going to have problems when you blow it apart. Just look at Yugoslavia.

My other thinking was that the one thing preventing Saddam Hussein from using his WMD - which I did believe he had, just like everyone else - was the threat of getting invaded by the US. If we invade him, there goes his motivation for not using them.

But it turned out I was wrong about that, thank goodness.

And while liberals like me found him as totally offensive as anyone else does and wanted him gone, I didn't exactly swallow the "spreading democracy" pill. That always made zero sense. It was always very likely to create animosity toward our country, and it never had anything to do with the "war on terrorism" (which is a euphemism).

Furthermore, we were already busy in Afghanistan - a war that was partly self-defense and partly about oil and natural gas pipelines from the Caspian Basin.

Finally - I think - it was clear that lots of innocent people were going to get killed. I've never felt good about the argument that Saddam Hussein would have killed more people. To me the Peter Principle isn't always right. Someone else doing something worse doesn't justify a lesser wrong. War is a total, pathetic failure, a last resort. I don't believe in discretionary wars.

So there are both practical and moral reasons why I believe this was wrong.

Zum, Zum, Zum. You know better. I know you know better. Come on, bro'.

Oh, and I neglected to spell out the other major reason I'm opposed to the Iraq war: it's about oil as much as anything else! And of course there's the Haliburton connection, which is incredibly cynical.

Of course I'm not saying it's only about oil, but it's undeniable that oil weighs heavily in the mix. That's another reason we need to invest heavily in the next energy economy, even though it may seem far off since we just discovered a huge oil field in the Gulf Coast. At best that will only prolong the agony.

The way to win the "war on terrorism" (which translates roughly to "grab the oil") is to remove the reason for the war. And Cheney is doing the exact opposite, the lying scumbag.

I never saw the bumper sticker that Nick referred to; I took one look at Kerry and listened to the ranting of a desperate man to know he was not a sound choice. I also lived in Tennessee for quite a few years and know Al Gore well enough that he wasn’t worth it either. You are very naïve if you thing we’re ever going to get a qualified presidential candidate from either the Republicans or the Democrats. No we are always going to get who they think has the best chance to win, period.

If I remember correctly, prior to 9/11 we were not in Iraq, nor were we in Afghanistan. The only thing we had really done in the Middle East was to kick Saddam’s butt out of Kuwait, which I don’t think anyone here can say that it was not the right thing to do at the time. We still got our arses handed to us at the World Trade Center. Why?

If I were in charge after 9/11, any government or individual that had any complicity, large or small with this act would have to answer for it. All of them would be scrambling to bring Bin Laden to us out of fear. Screw the French (especially the French), Russians, the Chinese and the Saudis. It wouldn’t take much to hang the House of Saud out to dry and they had a lot to do with it based on errors of omission.

Where did all this hate come from? I see it on the board here as I have a view that is in opposition to Nick and a few others. Just because you’re a liberal, I don’t demean you for it.

The radical Islam guys are dead serious about spreading their religion and they mean to spread it here. “Convert or Die” is their motto and we need to do something about it. I’m not saying they’re gonna do it tomorrow or next week, but they have it marked on their calendar. I have no problem with someone else’s beliefs when it comes to religion, just don’t try to force me to go your way, suggest, but don’t force.

I still say we should celebrate 9/11 with kicking some well deserving enemy’s butt. Keep ‘em wondering what we’re gonna do next.

It wasn't literally a bumper sticker, Sugar, it's just that kind of thinking.

As to the first Gulf War, did you know that it was at the behest of the Saudis you want to screw? Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait because they threatened to flood the market with oil at a time when he needed money desperately (because he'd just spent all that he had fighting Iran for eight years). The Saudis, whom it's in our interest to have on our side for obvious reasons, were concerned that he was getting ambitious and they'd be next.

The idea of kicking ass to spread fear and get countries to do our bidding is really appealing. We'd all like to be able to go and beat up the bad guys.

But it doesn't stand a chance of working. First of all, there's nobody to beat up when you're dealing with some creeps hiding in caves. We can go after Afghanistan because they allowed Bin Laden to operate, and that's not a bad idea - especially because the Taliban were at least as big a bunch of ****ing *******s as Saddam Hussein, and also because we were able to pay warlords to do it for us for the most part - but going after Iraq or anyone else to celebrate 9/11 is a hopelessly misguided idea.

Instead of having the effect we'd like, that turns the entire Muslim world (and the rest of it for that matter) against us and makes us lose the important battle over public opinion.

And for some reason I believe it's wrong to kill people, or even just to bring anarchy instead of democracy to them.

Also:

What you perceive as hate is frustration on my part. I apologize for that, but you're saying all the things that drive me nuts because they're so hopelessly wrong in my opinion. They're also evil, because there's no justification for killing innocent people.

Because as I keep saying over and over, over the past 100 years we have repeatedly crossed the line between competition for resources and outright imperialism, and those hopeless people there are furious at us! We've done lots of stuff in the Mid East - including arming Israel to the teeth, which they perceive as the other source of all their problems.

And because they're insane. I certainly don't want to apologize for those smelly pieces of **** - the idea that killing a bunch of innocent people is going to solve the world's problems is just sick.

But this didn't come out of the blue, and it's not only religious insanity. It is that, but it comes from desperation.