Jessica Taylor wrote in
:

You didn't put forth an argument, other than make an unsubstantiated
claim that "Iraq was about racism."

No, I said that the attack on Iraq was about racism and vengence.

Apparently you never had heard of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Heard of him. He wasn't Al Qaeda until 2004, though...

The Suicide Bombers families who were awarded monies by Iraq were for
Suicide Bombers in Israel.

I believe Israel is an ally of the United States.

Indeed. But suicide bombings started in Israel with the Intifada in 1989.
And Israel does a perfectly fine job of arresting and assassinating
terrorist leaders. Are you saying that the war in Iraq was an event that
had been planned since 1989 to assist our ally Israel?

And Iraq was attacked for numerous reasons. Depending on far distances
and oceans to protect America from threatening regimes, no matter what
their name, was no longer seen as an option. Iraq had been breaking
numerous UN resolutions and also a cease-fire. Numerous intelligence
agencies, American and from around the globe were pointing to Iraq as
building mass weapons. Iraq (and not anyone else) ended the war
cease-fire.

Iraq had been breaking UN Resolutions for some time. But the fact is that
the period just prior to the attack was a period during which Iraq showed
the most diplomacy with the UN and specifically UNMOVIC since 1991. Sure it
wasn't perfect, but certainly it wasn't leading to an imminent attack by
Iraq on the US.

The proof of this lies in the lack of WMDs.

I certainly "tell the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan" and never
said otherwise. Your remark is a strawman.

You seem to think they are both the turf of Al Qaeda just because they are
both Arab countries that harbor terrorism.

Noboydy said it was an immediate threat, least of all me. How would you
have dealt with North Korea? Hopefully not in a "racist" way!

I'm not sure what you mean by a "racist" way. That doesn't make sense.

We are going to have to deal with North Korea as a threat, since they are
testing nuclear weapons. Certainly threats from our weakened military
haven't worked, and we're just lucky that they didn't get it right the
first time.

So now instead of running away, we demolished their neighbor's
Sure, because the US has an exemplary record for finding and killing
terrorists who are hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan, don't they.

Ask Zarqawi and Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah

Zarqawi wasn't killed in Afghanistan. And Atwah wasn't either, but it
should be noted that Atwah was killed by Pakistani, not American forces.

Perhaps, but the Bush administration was just getting started in 2001,
and cabinet appointees had been stalled earlier in the year as well.

Talk about your lame excuses.

Didn't stop you from using the "racism" card!

I don't believe I called you a racist. I just said that the attack was
motivated by racism, among other things. I separately indicated that you
made comments that seemed racist.

Hmm., I didn't see you complain about the previous administration
bombing Baghdad in 1998 with more bombs than the 1991 gulf war! Perhaps
I just missed that. Did you object to Israel's aerial bombing of Iraq
circa 1981? Imagine what the results would be today if military action
had not been taken.

The Israel attack in 1981 was on a Nuclear Power Plant believed to be
designed to build Nuclear Weapons. It was a single attack on a strategic
target. It was not designed to convert the entire country to a Democracy.

The 1991 gulf war had a very specific purpose of pushing Iraq out of
Kuwait. The 42 day war involved strategic attacks on military and
infastructural targets. It was not an attempt to convert the entire country
to a Democracy.

The 1998 attacks were specifically to force Iraq to allow inspectors in,
which they did. It was not an attempt to convert the entire country to a
Democracy.

Those attacks were successful! They were strategic, targetted attacks that
resulted in compliance and fear by the enemy. None of them were designed to
overthrow a government or force a government to convert to democracy.

The attack in 2003 was essentially an American Jihad on Iraq. An attempt by
the United States and Britian to convert Iraq to a democracy by the
sword... It almost worked - they have a democratically elected government
and a constitution. But not everyone there wants it, and the government
that we installed isn't actually more powerful than the insurgents.

I believe that John Kennedy did send ships around Cuba. Nowadays, he
hasn't broken any major UN agreements or cease-fires, that I'm aware of.
S. Hussein's Iraq did. If you want to go into Rwanda, perhaps we can
put that on the to-do list.

Nope. Not me. I don't see Rwanda as a threat. But I also don't believe it
is our job to convert every non-democratic nation to be like us, in the way
that Christians did in the Crusades, or Islamic Militants do in a Jihad.

Can't do that if they are kicked out of country.

They were let back in following UN Security Council Resolution 1441 in
November 2002. On March 7, 2003, Hans Blix issued a report indicating that
Iraq was essentially cooperating.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/07/spr...anscript.blix/

Again, what would you had done to prevent "unfinished jobs" in N Korea?
The previous administration had attempted to make deals with a dictator
there, which we've learned from experience doesn't work. So the
"peaceful" nuclear engineering soon became another war machine,
predicatable to many but not the then President. So now we have to deal
with that.

Yes. We have to deal with that. But not by converting North Korea into a
democratic country. Instead by attacking the strategic targets appropriate
to disarm their nuclear program. Unfortunately, so much of our military and
intelligence has been stuck in Iraq that we may as well have had our heads
up the Koreans' asses.


Look. This argument is pointless. You said it yourself - you "believe the
only good terrorist is a [sic] good terrorist." (Although I think you meant
dead terrorist.)

You seem to believe that it is OK for a nation to be vigilantes in the name
of Democracy.

I believe that Due Process is one of the significant differences between us
and the terrorists.

You seem to believe as a country, we are better off after 2003 than we were
before 2003 because of our position in Iraq.

I believe we are not better off, and in short order it will become very
obvious. Partly because we are weakened by the situation in Iraq in terms
of military strength. But more importantly because other countries (both
friends and enemies) no longer respect us as a nation of power and reason,
but fear us as a nation of cowboys and hotheads, and one day may decide
that we are the terrorists.