"If you honestly think Saddam left alone for a decade will stay put and take up knitting, I've got a bridge to sell you. "

<yawn>

Again, not what I'm advocating. Keep him in a little box until and if he does something that *actually* justifies military action. Its worked for more than a decade, hasn't it? Sure, its expensive, but so will war and reconstruction.

"Saddam quite successfully hid a good portion of his nuclear program from the outside world until it was peeled away after the Gulf War"

Again, no argument. However, in the current environment there is no evidence that he is building nukes- plenty of evidence for Chem/Bio, I grant you, but none for nuke. Again, the whole point is justified self defense, which this isn't

"The Left, after enthusiastically plastering over a century of abysmal failures on the part of their beloved socialism, would have little trouble papering over their role in the obliteration of the Middle East."

The 'Prof' I quoted is no more a socialist than I am. Not sure which orafice you pull this nomenclature out of Tom or why you persist in it...

The powers of the west have been busy 'obliterating' the middle east for over a century now. There is plenty of condemnation to go around- and, I might add, the powers-per-diem of the middle east have been all to happy to help in their pulverization.

"If we were currently massed around North Korea"

Ah, and we are not currently? I'm sure the Commanders of the S. Korean 'deployed in place' troops would enjoy hearing that.

"North Korea is a red herring"

Naw. North Korea is poised continually to invade one of our few modern allies that IS a democracy, Has one of the largest and well equipped (comparatively) armies in the world, HAS WMD and is working on NUKES. AND has openly threatened to make nuclear war on America. AND is striving for missiles to do it with. Tom, this is the sort of claim that 'Bullshit' was designed to fit.

"You know, what's really ironic is that if Bush suddenly did exactly what the opposition wanted, and pulled the troops home, and the U.N. spent another five years puttering around the desert before they gave up and went home, and then ten years from now Saddam comes roaring out with nuclear arms and took the Arabian Peninsula, shredding Israel into a nuclear hell, not one of these people would stand up and say, "I was wrong." "

Even if you were right, and your not, what does this have to do with anything under the sun outside of your own opinions and political views?

Davin