I'm sorry Bush has to compromise his integrity to go along with this crap, but that's the way it's being played out. It would have been a lot more honest (if politically unsound) to just stand up, tell the U.N. that inspections were worthless, and they can come along and help us do the necessary job, or stay home and bitch.

If you want to go after Bush for playing games with the U.N. instead of being straightforward, you probably have a point.



You're getting warm, Tom. Thanks for acknowledging that Bush isn't being straight about Iraq.

The problem, for me at least, is that it isn't just the UN that Bush is lying to and playing games with. He's playing this game with everybody, including the American people.

Don't you think we have a right to have some say in the most dramatic US policy change in the last half century? Since when has America been the first to initiate hostilities? That's if you keep the narrow focus the Bush Regime wants. If you look at the bigger picture, the possibility that Bush is aiming for bigger things beyond Iraq, then this could be the biggest fundamental shift in the policy and philosophy of America in our history. Do we want to become the New Rome? Are we willing to pay the inevitable price?

We can't give our informed consent when our CEO is lying to us and cooking the books. Maybe if Bush was honest he'd still get the country behind him, but the fact that he's afraid to ask speaks volumes about his honest assessment of how we'd like the truth. He seems to trust us about as much as he trusts Saddam--he knows he won't get what he wants from either party by dealing in good faith, and so he's launching preemptive strikes to get his own way. First bomb the American people with dog-wagging lies, then bomb Saddam with real munitions.

And that, Tom, is why I have a wild hair where the sun don't shine.

--Robert