I'm not at all suprised you have nothing to ad AL.

If your new stance is right, then it was wrong to stand up against Hitler in the WW II, because that war caused humanity 55 million casualties.

Suppose you just assume this is some kind of english as a second language issue?

What's not clear about the meaning, Davebo?
He's suggesting that if it's wrong to fight Islamofascists, it can be argued that it was wrong to fight German ones.

After all, we could have accomodated them and fewer people would have died from 1941 to 1946, no?

There's a debate to have about whether Islamofascism presents the same kind of existential threat that German Fascism did. I have a feeling we'd be on opposite sides of that one...

...which may explain a lot.

A.L.

AL,

Sorry about that. I thought we were discussing the Iraq war, not Islamofacism.

Oh wait, we were. At first at least.

Yes, I'd assume we'd disagree regarding the threat to the world from Nazism versus the threat to the world from Saddam Hussein.

It would be interesting to know more about the commenter. Especially his religious affiliation.

He certainly believes that terrorists are causing the problems in Iraq and your reply indicates you concur.

If only that were the case. It would make things so much easier in Iraq.

Johann Hari:

It is unquestionably time to leave Iraq – but will the Bush administration surrender Iraq’s oil, after spending $200bn to grab it, just because the Iraqi people and their own troops want them to?

I'm glad Hari has gone over to the anti-war side, because the average IQ of both camps has now improved considerably.

You can't add anything to that? You can't add anything to a statement that says Hussein was the "worst dictator in history" just one sentence away from a discussion of Hitler?

By the time the U.S. came aboard in World War II, Hitler had already killed more people than Hussein could have dreamed of at his most orgasmic.

As for the fight against "Islamofascists," I'm up for that fight as much as anyone. But Iraq was, at best, about No. 25 on the list of locales to take that fight in 2003. How many of the dead in Iraq would be today alive if Georgie and Tony hadn't made their choice three years ago? How many murderous radical Islamists would be operating out of that morass?

Meanwhile, as my blogmate emptywheel points out, Bushco isn't even fighting the "war on terror":

...I'm increasingly convinced we're not fighting that other war, the war against Osama bin Laden and his associates, anymore.

Consider the stories we get from that war, the WOT:

* Rather than funding port security, we tried to sell the operation of our ports to a country legendary for its smuggling and money laundering.
* The DOJ is spending lots of time and money trying to crack down on internet pornography, but DHS has done little to protect against cyberterrorism.
* Gitmo, our special torture chamber just for terrorists, is actually filled primarily with innocent Pakistanis turned over to Americans to collect a bounty.
* Our new Director of National Intelligence (one of the few recommendations from the 9/11 commission we've implemented) spends his time getting massages and smoking cigars at the University Club, not fighting terror.
* Bush's biggest success story, about foiling an attack on the Liberty Library Tower in LA, turns out to be a gross exaggeration.
* The woman we've hired to win over the hearts and minds of Muslims has no experience in diplomacy and can't seem to avoid embarrassing gaffes.

Davebo, if terrorists aren't causing the "problems" in Iraq, who is?

I mean, the "problems" in Iraq aren't mass uprisings of citizens demanding the overthrow of the government.

The problems are not a general workers' strike.

The problems aren't famine, or disease, or even displacement or populations into refugee camps.

The problems seem to be a statistically small number of people blowing up Mosques, and putting bullets in the backs of skulls.

The problems seems to be people who have opted out of a democratic process, and who seek power from the end of a gun (or, more literaly, from a remotely-detonated IED).

In Iraq, we are gambling that we can inculcate a more robust political model than the one preferred by the OBLs, the Husseins, the Assads, etc. Not only is it a gamble, but it will be long pain-in-the-ass chore, and people are going to die.

What the terrorist have learned, and why they keep using these tactics, is that terror works. Doesn't really matter what creeds they may subscribe to, they've seen that the Caliph who is feared is the Caliph who rules. They've had multiple generations to see that it works, so who should be surprised they stick with it?

We are trying to reverse that lesson. We want to show that the most ruthless doesn't necessarily rule, and definitely shouldn't feel safe.

So yes, confronting the rotten infrastructure that makes up most of what passes for governance in the Islamic world is fighing terrorism, both at the proximate level and at the causal level. Got a better suggestion, or at least a link?

Well, we're there now.

I think "supporting our troops" means that we have to acknowledge that things aren't going so smoothly (the country was really ****ed up), so we're going to have to stay there for longer than the American public was initially ready for.

We need to use the troops over there intelligently. Use them to move around enough people around on the ground so that they have the option of having a stable, democratic government that isn't trying to kill them (like Saddam's government was).

I'm not seeing intelligent debate from either side of the political spectrum on what constitutes "intelligent use" of the troops. I'm seeing a lot of distortion on both sides, which is bad for the Republicans, bad for the Democrats, bad for the troops and bad for the security situation in the world.

Those who were opposed to defending the Persian Gulf armistice agreements are certainly in the same position as the Allies who failed to keep the peace fought for in WWI.

We now know that the Germans agreed to the terms at Versailles because they did not plan on complying with them, but instead needed time to stabilize the domestic situation and restore the economy in order to resume war. Relying on promises instead of unconditional surrender posed a lot of problems for the Allies. When Germany violated an isolated provision, the Allies found it repeatedly difficult to justify resuming war for incremental violations. Nor were all of the Allies in full agreement on all of the terms of the Armistice, so it was easy for the Germans to divide the enforcers. And guilt over monetary reparations also dissolved the will to enforce those terms necessary for national security.

Iraq was in the same position. Iraq repeatedly violated the cease fire agreement, yet nobody was willing to invade Iraq for individual violations. The world community demonstrably lacked the resolve to enforce the agreements and were also divided [ahem] by differing [ahem] economic interests. The sanctions regime that fell on the average Iraqi was morally troubling. Beyond the sanctions regime, some felt that Iraq was entirely justified in seeking WMDs that other countries possessed.

Whether you want to place Hitler and Saddam in the same category, that would be suspect. Saddam never reached the level of genocide. Germany was a far more crucial political and economic center of the world in the early 20th century (but we cannot ignore the importance of the Persian Gulf and the possible damage Saddam could have done in that region).

"But Iraq was, at best, about No. 25 on the list of locales to take that fight in 2003."

I'd love to see that list. We've heard this argument about a million times- and it's always a red herring. The folks making the argument about all the other places we should have made war on would never in fact support sending troops to a single one of them when held to it- with the possible exception of Afghanistan which is easy because
A.we already have troops there and
B.the folks making this argument dont know anything about warfare, much less understand the deliberate policy decision not to send to many troops into Afghanistan which had swallowed every foriegn army since Alexander.

Sure, lets 'go get' Bin Ladin- but would that include invading Pakistan in defiance of Mushariff? I wont even ask if it's wise (it's not) but is that something the anti-Iraq folks would realistically support at the end of the rhetorical day?

Mark,

The biggest trouble makers IMO are Sunni as well as Shia militias, death squads sanctioned by the Ministry of the Interior, and Bathists who aren't wild about giving up power they've held for 30 years.

To claim that "Islamofacism" is the biggest cause of Iraq's woes is to create a word, and then a handy definition for it.

Planned to save this for "Good News Saturday" but it seems that's been dropped.

March 17 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan will average 44 percent more in the current fiscal year than in fiscal 2005, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said.

Spending will rise to $9.8 billion a month from the $6.8 billion a month the Pentagon said it spent last year, the research service said. The group's March 10 report cites ``substantial'' expenses to replace or repair damaged weapons, aircraft, vehicles, radios and spare parts.

It also figures in costs for health care, fuel, national intelligence and the training of Iraqi and Afghan security forces -- ``now a substantial expense,'' it said.

The research service said it considers ``all war and occupation costs,'' while the Pentagon counts just the cost of personnel, maintenance and operations.

Link

Davebo, moving goalposts again.

I agree that the "problem children" of Iraq all have different end-state goals in mind, but in the end it would boil down to which dictatorship winds up on top.

That's the point of rule-by-terror; keep the masses with their heads down, toeing the line.

You're right that a one-word-fits-all doesn't exist for this condition; then again, in WW2, there were Nazis and Fascists and Communists (against us, then putatively with us, then against us) and of course your Emperor-worshiping Co-Prosperity Spherists. Somehow we muddled through then without a single label for our enemies, so maybe we could skip that part today too.

What is consistent between then and now is on one side is a set of cultures deeply rooted in the Enlightenment, and on the other a set of cultures deeply inimical to traditional Liberalism.

And that anti-Liberal culture has no problem killing people on the other side, just because.

The question is, when and where do we want to have this fight?

Mark,

How on earth am I "Moving Goal Posts Again"?

What is consistent between then and now is on one side is a set of cultures deeply rooted in the Enlightenment, and on the other a set of cultures deeply inimical to traditional Liberalism.

This in reference to WWII???

I think I've made it clear that I find comparisons to the Iraq War with WWII to be specious if not outright dishonest. As are comparisons with Vietnam.

And comparisons to post war Germany or Japan even more ludicrous.

One might conclude that Saddam's long range goal was to take over or dominate all of the oil producing regions of the middle east. Remember the war with Iran? The invasion of Kuwait? I seem to recall that Saddam remarked that his big mistake in Kuwait was not waiting until he had nuclear weapons before he invaded it. Of course, if he would have had nuclear weapons at that time I suspect that he would have rolled into Saudi Arabia as well. And what would have happened then? He could have dictated terms to most of the industrialized world by threatening to cut off the entire supply of middle eastern oil.

Saddam was a threat to world peace. Those who pretend that he was simply another third-world dictator who could never seriously harm the West are deluding themselves.

I wish the Dems well in this next election. I don't think I want to listen to two more years of whining.

Having said that, I don't know how this "pulling defeat from the jaws of victory" strategy is going to help them. I mean, don't people want to elect positive, optimistic leaders with a clear vision? The last time we elected a self-centered, doom-and-gloom guy --- hey, is Jimmy running again?

Iraq is Iraq. It's not a war, anymore than firefighters have a "war on fires" or cab drivers have a "war on street crime." It's not even a police action. It's just keeping the lights on until the Iraqis can torture, govern, and do whatever else they desire to themselves. The perfectionists and drama queens among us can decry the violence and money spent, and raise heck at the policies used. But at the end of the day, it's a tempest in a teapot.

So switch sides if you must. Switch around again if it suits you. I agonized over sending the kids to Iraq and I'm not about to chicken out on them now. Especially since they're in the end-game. It might make for good politics or good blogging, but I personally think they deserve better than that.

Davebo: To claim that "Islamofacism" is the biggest cause of Iraq's woes is to create a word, and then a handy definition for it.

The word was created by Dr. Malise Ruthven in 1990: "Islamic societies seem to have found it particularly hard to institutionalise divergences politically: authoritarian government, not to say Islamo-fascism, is the rule rather than the exception from Morocco to Pakistan." [Satanic Affair: Salman Rushdie and the rage of Islam ]

The word has expanded in meaning to include non-governmental activity by militant Muslims, with intent to intimidate - similar to the street tactics of early fascist and Nazi movements. This is thought to be especially effective against morally confused Weimar Republic-style liberalism, but we'll wait and see if it works twice before we start to worry too much.

Obviously it is not a separate phenomenon from sectarian strife - just ask any Saudi Shi'ite, if you can find one that still has a f--king head.

So if it's not the fascism, then it's the religion itself. Care to go there?

Hari is bending with the wind, like a reed. He feels that is in his best interest at this time. At a later time, he may bend the other way, once again. These are insubstantial fools who cannot be trusted with any meaningful responsibility, therefore they are columnists.

It's just keeping the lights on ...

Uh-huh. If only that could be accomplished.

You've got me confused with your collection of straw men, Mark.

Of course, your idea and mine about what taking the fight to somebody means is, no doubt, different. Letting nuclear-armed Pakistan and its ISI-loving Taliban buddies - not to mention A.Q. Khan - off the hook because of Musharraf says a great deal about the priorities of the misleaders who wanted to avoid Afghanistan altogether and bomb Baghdad on September 12.

The Saudis and their madrassas get a pass; the Sudanese leadership and its genocide in Darfur get a pass. Iraq, though led by a monster, was no haven for radical Islamists under Saddam. Now these enemies of everything liberty-loving peoples hold dear learn how to fight the "Long War" courtesy of the clowns who brought us the "cakewalk."

I wasn't talking to you, Meteor. And my name isn't Mark. Mark is the other guy.

Geesh.

Seems to me that there is a lot of arm-waving, generalizations, and monday-morning quarterbacking going on. I'm all for talking, debating, and learning, but people should always keep their head together.

And Mark, who is the other guy, is correct: all of this ranting is just a red herring. Intellectual honesty is a good thing.

Personally, I wish my grandma had wheels and airplane wings. Then I could fly her over to Iraq and drop some of that fruitcake she makes every year on AQ.

Sorry, Daniel, I hadn't read the rules here stating that one can't make a comment about TWO posters' remarks at the same time. Or that one can't respond to a remark that a poster made in response to somebody else.

I'll be sure to mind my Ps and Qs from now on, you betcha.

But, since I'm here and you were talking to me this time, let me just agree that "intellectual honesty" is a good thing. I'd love to see some from the smarmy ideologues who are now claiming that the policy vehicle they designed was A-OK, and that the current wreck occurred all because of a bad driver behind the wheel.

Mistakes were made. The pres is the guy driving, so vote in somebody new. Big deal. That's the job the man took. Personally I think he's doing a good job, but you get to vote -- go do it.

Having said that, for decades we've had a lot of guys with stars on their shoulders getting trillions of dollars by promising that we could fight two wars at the same time. This does not appear to be the case.

Whoever gets power and the office will have to deal with this more serious issue no matter what the current progress or failure in the mideast.

It's an election year coming up, folks. The endgame in Iraq means that those opposing the war will get more and more frantic as November approaches. The frustrating part for the Dems will be that Iraq will in some ways be the main issue, but in other ways is just business as usual. It'll be fascinating to watch the politics develop.

Meteor -- you gave away the fringe-lefty game with "Bushco."

While other targets should arguably have been toppled in 2003 before Saddam (Iran, Pakistan, Saudi, for example) at least kicking in Saddam's door meant that fear of the US was introduced in the ME which is a good and moderating influence on that region. The Left at any rate opposed even Afghanistan so the argument is meaningless from that perspective. No Leftist at any time and at any place will endorse military action (they opposed the bombing of Serbia to unseat Milosevic, and defended his genocide purely on the grounds that America opposed Milosevic and his actions).

The central criticism stands: fringe-lefties and naive utopians "just say no to War" with no answer about tolerating atrocities. How was genocidal actions in the Balkans stopped (think Srebenica). Or Rwanda? Or Cambodia? In all cases it took armed men killing the killers to make the genocide stop. Peace conferences and paper-mache giant puppets did nothing. Nor did the two-faced and sanctimonious words of Kofi Annan or other World Leaders. The model of modern Leftism fails when confronted by acts like these because they have no answer that has actually ever worked.

Is Iraq better off without Saddam? Unquestionably yes because the violence has an end-point: when the Sunnis get tired of fighting a useless battle and come to terms with the Shia (which is exactly what the fighting is about). Contrast with Saddam where one reign of blood would be substituted by another (whichever son killed the other). This does not change the anti-Modern behavior of the Iraqi people en masse, but does when equilibrium is reached mean a far more stable Iraq with a division of the corruption matching on-the-ground political power.

As far as "blood for oil," I find it laughable with oil prices at historic levels, and total Arab control of critical oil supplies. If it was Imperialism oil would be lower than $18 per barrel, and young men would be flocking to Iraq or Afghanistan to make their fortunes, with America a net creditor instead of debtor nation.

I would agree that handling the occupation has been very poor, with little acknowledgment of the political dimensions of the struggle, or will to act decisively. I would have preferred now to have invaded Iran and Pakistan first, kicking over those particular regimes and breaking their nuclear weapons. But sadly that was never on the menu.

The really interesting thing to me is how utterly unconcerned our leftist commentators are with the points raised by Hari's Iraqi interlocutor. There really isn't even a drop of care in their veins.

The most attention the Iraqi writer gets is to question their religious affiliation as a possible discrediting tactic. Otherwise, he is simply ignored.

I should add that the Ba'athists unwilling to lose their role as bully-boys, torturers, et. al. (sounds like the Klan to me), ARE in fact textbook cases of Islamofascism. Ba'athism being explicitly derived from Nazi ideology as well as some Stalinist roots. To say that Ba'athist paramilitary death squads are a problem but Islamofascism isn't, therefore, is both ignorant and incoherent.

But that, too, is par for the course when only one war really matters to you. Which is why moral equivalence and support for the Iraqi Klan has been seen as entirely acceptable to the left from the war's genesis onward.

The complete disregard for people like Abdulkhaliq Hussein flows directly from that orientation - one described well in the recent issue of the Decent Left magazine Democratiyya.

Gee, Jim and Joe, just as not all right of center folks are the same, not all of us leftists are, either.

For the record, I was totally behind the assault on the Taliban and Afghanistan and supported going into ex-Yugoslavia long before it was done. Remind me again which side of the aisle screamed against "Clinton's war" in Serbia.

As for Cambodia, as I recall it was the Vietnamese who stopped that genocide, while the U.S. backed Pol Pot's representatives at the United Nations.

Meteor Blades: Remind me again which side of the aisle screamed against "Clinton's war" in Serbia.

Okay, but this is the last time I'm going to remind you, so write these down:

1. Joseph Sobran. He actually wrote a column entitled "Clinton's War". In which he also blasted the elder George for his imperialist Gulf War I, which he says was all based on the lie that Kuwaiti incubator babies were being killed. Sound familiar? Needless to say, he's on your side now. He's right behind you, 100%.

2. Ramsey Clark. He's on your side, too. In fact, if anything happens to Cindy Sheehan, he'll be your leader.

3. Progressive Magazine. Here's their 1999 article, Bill Clinton's War, in which they suggest that we bomb Turkey for mistreating Kurds, oddly enough. Right idea, wrong country.

4. Dr. William Pierce. Major National Alliance creep, who also wrote an article entitled "Clinton's War", being as it is such a catchy title. Don't even get him started on Iraq, or on Jews and stuff.

5. Scott McConnell. Kerry supporter, antiwar.com inmate, and expert on Clinton's "war crimes".

6. Pat Buchanan. End Clinton's War Now! "Kosovo was the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong enemy. America is not threatened by Serbia ..." Sound familiar? That's another guy you can keep.

Okay, now where's the real list?

Remarkable.

So now I'm linked to three anti-Semites? As for Pat "Nazi war criminals got a bad rap" Buchanan, the despicable Jew-hater Pierce or the kinder-gentler anti-Semite Sobran, sorry, not in my camp. Since I've written publicly against the distortions at antiwar.com, I don't think I'll have to accept that fellow as one of mine either.

Sadly, I have to admit that I once thought highly of Ramsay Clark, but it's been 20 years since I did.

But why no mention of these fellows?

Senator Rick Santorum: "[President Clinton] has yet to tell the Congress how much this operation will cost. And he has not informed our nation's armed forces about how long they will be away from home. These strikes do not make for a sound foreign policy."

Senator Trent Lott: "I had doubts about the bombing campaign from the beginning...I didn't think we had done enough in the diplomatic area."

Rep. Joe Scarborough: "Well, I just think it's a bad idea. What's going to happen is they're going to be over there for 10, 15, maybe 20 years"

Representative Tom Delay: "I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now."

Senator Don Nickles: "I don't know that Milosevic will ever raise a white flag"

Sean Hannity: "Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life?"

Governor George W. Bush: "Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is."

Senator Richard Lugar: "This is President Clinton's war, and when he falls flat on his face, that's his problem."

Neologist Michael Savage: "These international war criminals were led by Gen. Wesley Clark ...who clicked his shiny heels for the Commander-in-grief, Bill Clinton."

Representative Helen Chenoweth: "It is a remarkable spectacle to see the Clinton Administration and NATO taking over from the Soviet Union the role of sponsoring "wars of national liberation."

Ah ha. There it is.

Also, Hitchens.

"Of course, your idea and mine about what taking the fight to somebody means is, no doubt, different. Letting nuclear-armed Pakistan and its ISI-loving Taliban buddies - not to mention A.Q. Khan - off the hook because of Musharraf says a great deal about the priorities of the misleaders who wanted to avoid Afghanistan altogether and bomb Baghdad on September 12."

So, Flaming One, who on September 12 was openly hostile to the United States, who was in breach of a number of U.N. Resolutions, who was underwriteing suicide bombers in Israel, who was shooting at US warplanes, amd who was sitting in the middle of the Persian Gulf waiting to be let out of a rotting cage?

I am not saying your concerns are unjustified, merely that they are convenient.

So, you wanna take on Pakistan? Why not Iran, right now? Let the Iraqis sort out their mess, now that Iraq has been neutralized. Haul ass east with everything we've go, pull every guy building bridges and guarding oil pipelines. Bomb the hell out of the most immediate threat, most immediately. Find an "our bastard", fix him up with a brothel, and send the progeny to Harvard. Think of it as Shah Mk. II.

You accuse me of straw man arguments, and then pull the "but Pakistan has nukes" thing. Give me a break. You say here, now, that you think the U.S. should take any action necessary to immediately prevent Iran from going nuclear, and I'll credit you for a not-so-bright-but-honest freak.

Otherwise, eh. Noise in the channel.

The war on Iraq was launched on a pack of lies. Everyone knows this. Now get out.

In three years no one will care and we'll all be wondering about the sanity of people who sat and typed long dissertations on blogs as to why America should wage wars against another country that has never done anything to harm us.

Sick, I tell you, it is just plain sick.

The Iraqi people have suffered enough. Just get out and stop killing them. Let them settle their own affairs for god's sake.

Pakistan has nukes, and as we all now know - despite the refusal of our good pal Musharraf to let us talk to him - A.Q. Khan was spreading nuclear technology all over the place, including by many accounts, to the mullahs of Iran. For all I know, his pals still are, but then I don't have a security clearance like the classified leakers in the White House.

No, I won't grant you that it would be a good idea, at this time, to take military action against Iran. The U.S. still has not dealt face-to-face with Tehran on the nuclear issue, and until it does so, not all diplomatic options have been exhausted.

Yes, I know that Iran has played games on the diplomatic front, possibly to buy time, has concealed nuclear activity and is still far from transparent in this regard. I am not a pollyanna about Iranian nukes, any more than I have been regarding North Korea's, and I take the possibility that they are in the process of building some very seriously, indeed. A country that has sponsored suicide bombers and other terrorism shouldn't be taken lightly. But, unlike others here at WoC, I don't think they already have the Bomb or are close to having one. While I don't accept the NIE assessment that it will take them 10 years to get one, I don't think the threat is immediate.

The real threat is one that Mr. Bush and his advisors - for those who dislike my use of "Bushco" - prefer to ignore and repeatedly cut the budget for: dealing with loose nukes.

Much as I detest the Iranian regime, there is a double-standard in play regarding how the NPT is being used against Tehran. If the NPT were rewritten to internationalize production of fissile material, and to require inspections of everybody who is enriching uranium - like the Saudis - Iran wouldn't be able to argue sovereign rights in its pursuit of nuclear power (which may well be a cover for Bombs). The U.S. should be hard as hard at work on that front as it is in preparing sorties over Natanz.

Blazing One, besides for endless blah blah blah, I have no idea what your prescription for Bushco might be, other than ritualistic hari kari.

Got any plan (other than keeping Jimmy Carter's frequent flier miles maxed out)?

BTW, I just love phrases like "dealing with loose nukes". How, pray tell, does one deal with that problem? I mean, there seem to be as many ex-Soviet -stans as there are U.S. states with straight-line borders. (Those of you in the blue states, take a moment to find a map...)

For a stake in the red herring business....

Meteor -- the obsession of the Left with useless process is Exhibit A in their inability to proffer any course of action that might actually, work in the real world we live in.

NPT is like King Canute down at the seashore. NPT did not stop North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa, Brazil, and Iran from getting nukes. It did not stop Iraq's and Saddam's thirty year effort to get them, or Libya's effort about which most is unknown. Nukes are a sixty year old technology, if a nation wants them it will get them unless force is used. Simple as that. NPT has about as much use Kofi Annan's "concerns over the UN' s neutrality" during the Rwandan genocide. The Left is fond of excusing rogue nuclear nations like Iran by citing the US's possessions (moral equivalence) and focusing on the NPT. The latter which was dead the day it was signed.

No one is concerned about Brazil, South Africa, or Israel having nukes. India and Pakistan keep each other balanced out, and so far China has kept North Korea on a leash. Iran's nukes are dangerous because they have explicitly threatened to nuke Israel and the US; and have implicitly threatened neighboring states and Europe. Moreover, Iran sees itself as the protector of Muslims in Europe, with dangerous consequences with nukes. "Submit to Sharia in Italy or else!"

"Cutting the budget for dealing with loose nukes" ... that has nothing to do with Iran. Russia is understandably fidgety and is recalcitrant just because it can be. See: France. Making the "gun-type" HEU bomb is pretty simple. Oppenheimer didn't even test his design. Throwing billions down the Russian rathole (it will just be stolen, and nukes left in their current state anyway) will do nothing to stop Iran nuking us.

I think you are being far too sanguine about Iran. If they were far away why escalate the rhetoric as they do constantly? Far better to simply delay and obfuscate. Instead they seem to be preparing the ground for a confrontation, nuclear in character.

Well, Mark, I made it clear: Face-to-face talks with Tehran. That doesn't rule out future military action, if needed. As for dealing with loose nukes, how about if the Bush Administration stopped hacking away at the funding for implementing the Nunn-Lugar program, for a start?

Yeah, Iran wants face-to-face talks about Iraq, but oddly enough nukes aren't to be discussed.

Yadda yadda yadda. Keep spinning those centrifuges, baby!

#30 Ken

I cannot fathom how some seem so convinced that the murderous thugs in Iraq represent the population and by their actions should be allow to dictate to the Iraqi people how they live.

If the Iraqis DID NOT want democracy they would've have voted in such large numbers on 3 occasions.

Anyway who thinks that Shi'ite on Sunni violence is being caused by the American presence has got rocks in their heads.

ken sez:

"The Iraqi people have suffered enough. Just get out and stop killing them. Let them settle their own affairs for god's sake."

What should I infer from this statement?

For one thing, it seems that in ken's head the Coalition is happily killing scores of Iraqis just for the hell of it.

But there is a bigger point: if Iraqis will resort to mass-murder to settle their own affairs - probably with the generous help of Iran and the Whahabis - it will nevertheless be OK because no evil AmeriKKKans are involved?

I'm just happy we can all get along.

It was interesting to see the Kosovo quotes. Not especially relevant if you believe that 9-11 changed the nature of American foreign policy, but interesting.

"Just get out and stop killing them."

?!?!?

Did I miss something? Is our mission in Iraq to kill civilians? I must have missed that on the evening news. Seems like that would have made the top of the fold on the daily newspaper as well.

Why do these terrorist nations and killers not like us? I just wish we could have a war someday with people who were more friendly.

I don't think any actual discussion of facts is going to dissuade people from their True Belief.

Is the fact that violence occurs that drives the left so nuts? Has it devolved to this, that the left embraces an amoral, nihilistic pacifism that cares nothing for any other people... simply because they're wimps?

Uh, In the run up to the Afghanistan (debacle or victory, take your pick) a contingient of the US Military (Marines I believe) was sent to help guard the Packi nukes. Ever hear of them being withdrawn?

Didn't think so.

Notice things have cooled off re: Pak-India? Could some one be guarenteeing a no Pak first strike?

Why is North Korea not a problem? Because South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan all have nukes. (They were given a lot of so called low-grade plutonium by the USA - I'm guessing they made a few low grade bombs.) I'd give a url for this but it is a blogsp*t url. The word under all circumstances is verboten.

Now given the US strategy of co-opting or co-operating with semi-friendly nuclear powers how does Iran fit in to the picture? Not well. Not well at all.

Does anyone else find the complete and utter failure of the anti-war proponents to address the important point here interesting in and of itself?

It seems to me that the important point here is that by Hari's own admission the majority of feedback he is getting from Iraqi's is negative.

Discuss that, instead of quibbling with the particular metaphor that the Iraqi writer choose to use. Discuss that, instead of discussing whether the political views of the insurgents in Iraq can be properly deemed facist, and whether WWII is an apt analogy even if they can. Forget about the fact that you don't think that the Iraqi writer has good English, and don't think that his disagreement is intellectually rigorous enough. Deal with the fact that he's disagreeing at all. Deal with the substance of his complaint and stop nitpicking it apart.

Lets not forget that its an Iraqi that wrote this letter. If he wants to deem Sadaam 'the worst dictator' in history, I don't see who we are to quibble. Let's not forget that he lived under Sadaam, and if he can't manage enough perspective to see that Hitler might indeed be objectively worse, well let's not get too upset because we must admit that having never lived under either we don't have alot of perspective either.

Deal with this:

"If the tyrants were left to do as they like because of the possible revenge from their followers, then our globe will be place for the tyrants only and the whole planet population will be living like sheep."

Deal with the argument instead of brushing aside, otherwise admit that you have no answer to the charge that you are capitulating to the aggressors in the hope that it will cost you little and with no concern whatsoever for what it will cost the Iraqi people.

Does it strike anyone else as odd that the media has been so quick to jump on the 'Iraqi civil war' meme, given that that was Al Qaeda's intermediate goal in Iraq? (http://csmonitor.com/2004/0210/dailyUpdate.html)

As I recall from that captured/leaked Zarqawi letter from last year, their plan was to exacerbate sectarian violence, sparking a regional sectarian conflagration that would somehow lead to their success through some ill-defined process (much like the Underwear Gnome's business model in South Park, eh?). Given that a sectarian Iraqi civil war is Al-Qaeda's explicit goal, It's striking how hard the Western media is being played for free Al-Qaeda propaganda (and no, I don't think the MSM is in cahoots with The Enemy, just that they're remarkably myopic).

As an on-topic aside, it's remarkable that anyone who didn't realize that we'd need to station troops in Iraq for at least a few messy generations to effect the strategic changes needed would be considered an intellectual (cf. Korea, Japan, Phillipines, Germany, &tc.). It must not take much these days...

It never ceases to amaze me how conservatives with opinions are so lost in ideology that reality is ignored.

I don't doubt that you guys really, really, do love Iraq to the point of obsession. But the rest of us couldn't care less.

All we want our of Iraq and the middle east is oil. They can sell it to us. Or they can keep it.

Either way it is not something we want to go to war over.

I they don't sell it to us, they can choke on it for all we care.

But as for your wierd obsession with Iraqies to the point it harms the rest of us, I got some news for you. Do it on your own nickel. Our country is not your plaything. So get out and go to Iraq if you guys love it so much.

So, let's see if I have this straight.

Invading Iraq...bad.

Invading the tribal area of Pakistan...good.

Invading the NW Frontier of Pakistan...good.

Invading the whole of Pakistan itself...good.

Invading the home of the two holiest sites in all of Islam...good.

And I thought the Libertarians had some nutty ideas. Phew....

#44 Ken

According to that logic it shouldn't be the concern of anyone in the West of the oppression suffered by others, so long as it is not possible to construe from the actions of the West that they might have contributed to it.

The left masquerades as being humanitarian and caring of others, however the reality is they are incredibly selfish...

That's what I thought.