I was referring to Raoul for apparent full agreement with the article.

Our press is hardly a biased cheerleader for the US war effort.

I'm suggesting an opinion piece which plays loose with the facts and with obvious bias is obviously biased and not trustworthy. There are obviously some valid criticisms in the article and several that are not.

I am very fond of giving diplomacy a chance, but feel it should be based on honesty. Claiming questionable and objectional motives for an opposing country while hiding your own self interest is not the way to make progress. The US was honest about it's self interest (security, protecting world's oil supply) while France, China, and Russia were not. It is also usless when every detected failure in cooperation is portrayed as a success for inspectors. Evasion implies explicitly a lack of cooperation. Destroying anything found is no gaurantee of progress in the face of noncooperation because the rate of replacement is unknown.

It is quite obvious France, China, and Russia had no real intention of making Iraq conform to UN restrictions. Russia and France have been assisting Iraq in violating sanctions for over a decade.

I see no reason to acquiesce to a third rate power's desire to be a world leader just to keep from stepping on anyone's toes. I do think the US should avoid trying to dominate and interfere with every government we dislike. I do not think it is wrong to use force for our security or to eliminate regime's like Saddam's. We can't eliminate all of them for several reasons, but we sure can when it coincides with self protection. We most assuradly should foreswear propping up dictators for the sake of expedience in the future and limit aid to truly free countries or those making real progress in democracy and human rights. I think this past behaviour is a major source of international resentment.

Regards,
Mark