Tom wrote:
"Held their tongue??? Right. Half a dozen major nations are adamantly opposed to an invasion of Iraq, and they are not going to bring up the possible lack of Iraqi WMD as an overrriding reason not to invade because they "aren't sure." "

Deeep cleansing breath. lets stay on target and listen to what I'm actually saying, Tom.

Of course they were not silent on the issue of the war- but do please indulge me and find anywhere that they make absolutist claims about the existence or non-existence of WMD... I think the issue was underdetermined by everyones intelligence services. As such they made no large claims and stayed quiet on the issue. Read the portion you objected to again in the original post.

Recall that (and I wish we could go digging and that Robert S had the search function up and running!) My argument against the war, and the argumet of most sane folks around the globe was (roughly and with variation) as follows (begin derivation...):
1) Granted, Iraq may or may not have WMD
2) For sure, though, there is no convincing evidence of terorist ties or intent
3) There is no evidence, even beyond (2) that Iraq intends to use ChemNukeBio against America and her allies
4) Therefore the argument can not be made that Iraq must be invaded pre-emptively
5) Therefore this war is not reasonably justified
6) Therefore this war is morally incorrect

Also, for me add:
7) Therefore this war is just plain stupid and damaging to the US, her alliances and her interests because it makes us appear on the same level as Nazi Germany or 1940s japan (going to war for entirely unjustifiable reasons)

tom wrote:
"If France, as an example, had no independent intelligence that Saddam had WMD, this would have been number one on the hit parade at the U.N. Bush would have had his nose rubbed thoroughly in this fact long before the war even started. You can do better than this."

Having no indep. intel that Saddam had WMD is not the same thing as having convincing intel that he did not have WMD. If France was reasonably sure of that Iraq had none, believe me- we would have heard about it! (they are, afterall, French!)

tom wrote:
"The rest of your post is just an attempt to slide past the original point. "

You mean the part you misinterpreted or the part you actually read? ;-)

tom wrote:
"I don't even understand your analogy of more than one nation interpreting the data the same way as "they did it too so it's not that bad." "

You are saying that because "they" f'd up, its not so bad that we f'd up. Unfortunately, tom, the gun was in OUR hands, so we had the obligation to get it right.

As per above, I'm not sure they F'd up. They maybe claimed EXACTLY what their intelligence suggested about WMD: neither that they diod nor did not exist.

Tom wrote:
"Remember, the original thesis is that Bush either is incompetent, or lied. My response is that if this is true for Bush, it's true for the Clinton administration, true for many nations in Europe, and true for the U.N."

You claim not to get my point, but then you restate it. You are saying that if Bush was stupid, then France, germany etc was stupid too.

Thats not the case. I don't recall them making decisive statements (and this is just memory, so correct me if I am wrong) ONE WAY OR THE OTHER about WMD in Iraq.

ADDITIONALLY, and even if they did make strong affirmative claims your argument certainly in the least implies that somehow it makes us look not so bad? I disagree- we killed round-a-bout 10,000 people for a 'mistake'

EVEN FURTHER: You held Germany, France etc as incompetent in the lead up to this war. So if you equate the decision making process of this administration with that set, what does this imply about bush?

In general, it sounds like to me you are trying to do the thing you identify 'typical' liberals wit- dodge the personbal moral responsibility by passing the buck to other people who (possibly) made the same mistakes.

but again- we pulled the trigger.

I ain't wiggling an inch here, Tom. Calling it a wiggle doesn't do much for you.

Davin L.