"Logic" is a funny way to put anything Margolis had to say on the issue.

... is Saddam in power or not? Is the army in control of Iraq or not? Is the war affordable or not? With those kinds of black and white arguments you can construct a policy but the shades of gray arguments don't go away, they tend to form a gray quagmire.

Then again, simply because a thing is not mentioned in no way means it is being ignored. Implications are there, but hardly create any form of reality. We might as well assume that these supposedly ignored shades of gray are really being handled by Bush's Men in Gray Task Force (Tech1 can probably go into some great level of detail on this).

Anyway, I agree, though not with your drug war analogy. For that, we'll need to concentrate on northern Afghanistan come harvest time.

The problem there is everyone has a relative who takes drugs and they don't think he is evil. So the consensus of the community is that drug takers and small time pushers aren't very evil and so they don't turn them in. So the drug war really founders on the fact that for the most part people don't see drug takers as evil enough to eradicate.

US law states that taking illegal drugs is, well, illegal. It must be, because they are, so expect to be prosecuted. What the War on Drugs did, though, was open America’s eyes to the real problem, resulting in the precedence that persons taking illegal drugs who opt (AKA volunteer) for therapy will likely not be prosecuted. The object of removing a consumer from an illegal market is the goal, and this has been met. And a person taking illegal drugs who opts for therapy and who testifies against a supplier will very likely not be prosecuted. The object of removing a supplier from an illegal market is the goal, and this has been met.

Believe it or not, it really does work.

The only true gray I can make out regarding the Battle for Iraq is the fact that the UN demands results by last Tuesday, there is a growing presidential campaign going on here -- which has today's media reps hugging more trees than forests -- and American voters remain free to whine about whomever is currently pulling their Admin strings, whether in DC or downtown. Once the race is won, Bush will be free to nuance all over the UN, the Middle East, and America, and the UN, the Middle East, and America are very much aware of this -- something no DNC candidate has shown the balls to even think about, let alone campaign for.

Try to avoid writing long posts that use only one paragraph. It hurts.

Cheers,
Dan