Hi Tom,

As much as I question the value of the military action in Iraq in
terms
of the war on terror,

And an effective alternative is...what?

better intelligence work could have prevented 9/11 for a start. Or
choosing our friends more wisely would be a good idea. E.g. not
supplying terrorists like OBL with weapons just because at the moment
they are shooting them at people we don't like.

Please note that I'm not ruling out military action as an option, if
there is reason to believe that possible future terrorist acts can be
prevented. Afghanistan was justified in my view, given that the taliban
openly supported OBL, only the job was not finished (yet again!). Iraq
was never really about terrorism, was it? Maybe the bush administration
was really that much mistaken about Iraqs capabilities to build WMDs, i
can't judge that. But Saddam was never harbouring terrorists, because
he hated islamic fundamentalists and they hated him. They both hated
the US, but for completely different reasons.

regards,
Friedrich

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