As for an answer to your post, I didn't think it really required a detailed one. I think it's apparent that both sides tend to believe those sources that tell them what they want to hear. I think that the Left is cherry picking, and you think Bush, or the CIA, was. The truth may end up being somewhere in the middle.

Two guys say that Al Quaeda was training in Iraq, and are not believed because of their suspicious origins. On the other hand, I read an article recently where the author quoted the statements of two ex-Al Quaeda members who said there was no link with Saddam, and the author regarded this as proof. So these two guys are reliable while the other guys have an axe to grind? There are a number of similar examples.

I have heard a hell of a lot about anonymous intelligence and defense sources. You realize, of course, that a one or two such sources, quoted by thirty writers in separate articles, would make it look like the CIA was up to its butt in dissidents. I'd like to see more names. Especially in light of a rash of recent revelations about newspeople pulling facts and sources out of their ass.

Your response to Dan still bothers me a bit. You have said in other posts that the civilian casualties in Afghanistan are more defensible, since they attacked us first. While at least shows you don't follow the solid Leftist line*, I don't see how this is consistent. Is revenge sufficient to make such deaths moral?

Or was the intent to prevent future attacks? I've seen how that rationale goes over here. How do you prove that such attacks would have taken place?

Ask a cop about the Dahmer analogy. The man brutally murdered about 15 people, and showed no signs he would ever stop. While I think his capture was actually bloodless, had there been a firefight and one of his hostages was killed in the crossfire, what do you think would have been the judgment of the courts on the actions of the cops?

Would they say the cops should have let him escape to avoid placing a hostage in danger? Especially a hostage that stood a very good chance of being murdered later? To make it really tricky, maybe we should imagine the firefight killing a kid in a building nearby, who would have been in no danger at all had the firefight never occurred.

Certainly, by sheer averages, had Saddam's rule continued, some of the people who were killed by the war would have lived to ripe old ages. As slaves, of course, but live slaves. Conversely, it is certain that with Saddam's defeat, many will live that otherwise would have died. This isn't as cut and dried as you seem to think it is, either.

*The hard left doesn't think we should have gone to war in Afghanistan, either.