Let me preface.

Killing innocent Iraqis is wrong. It was wrong for their government to do it, it is wrong for our government to do it. Seems reasonable to me.

When one bombs, rockets, shells, and shoots at people, damage isn't "collateral". It is predictable, innocent people will die.

I'm also saying that anyone who believes killing more innocent Iraqis will somehow atone for the Kurds is a hypocrite. I'm adding that anyone who claims their heart bleeds for Kurds now and didn't in 1988, and 1989, 1990, etc. is a phony.

I would also add that anyone who believes that the people who supplied Saddam Hussein with WMD are morally superior to Hussein is a fool. Those be Cheney and Rumsfeld, and just because they are Caucasian, American, and like me doesn't mean they aren't criminals on a par with Hussein.

Having said the above, and believing those things, along came Marcia. She may be likeable. I'm sure her mother loves her. (God, there I go again.) She's also the holder of some ideas I find intellectually and morally repugnant, for reasons which are equally repugnant, and I said so under predictable circumstances.

Frankly, I believe that my experience at the urging of another American President who was also wrong, where more innocent people were killed in a misguided effort at "liberation", I believe that card trumps her "I have a friend who blah blah blah and I think we should kill some more people" card. After all, Saddam wasn't in that van, for instance.

And without the fools who support him, GWB couldn't commit the war crimes which fill the TV screens of people around the world, cost money the US doesn't have, draws the scorn of reasonable people everywhere, and deprive US citizens of all the good which could have happened. And creates more hatred.

I treated her a bit harshly in my post. Parts of it were condescending, insulting and certainly NOT constructive. Didn't intend for those to be constructive, I meant for them to convey my opinion. It was on the Flame Board, she had posted, and I replied. She found me, I didn't go looking for her, and she spouted what to me was pious nonsense.

I explained why I have no respect for her ideas, that killing more innocent Iraqis will NOT bring Kurds back to life, even at the hands of a born-again Christian. She's promoting killing innocent people after all, and using that as an excuse. If she really felt for innocent Iraqis, she'd be for stopping this slaughter, in real-time, in a meaningful way. Made her fair game, I thought. And think.

She's tough, doesn't give much quarter as I recall. Certainly followed me around for a couple of days making her opinion of me quite clear. Not my ideas, but me.

So be it. After all the purely ad hominem posts regarding me on the other boards, from eb, Dan Spires, Scott, Matt Burley, etc. and so on, I find it a bit ironic the ad hominem aspect of my post on the Flame Board draws comments. Please don't get me wrong, I'm aware that those people have no content and have to resort to the ad hominem stuff, and I sort of enjoy it.

I will say there was a bit too much energy in it. What was it Barry Goldwater said about extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice and wussiness in defense of liberty is no virtue? Or something like that. I don't know that I'd want to be the kind of person who didn't have a lot of energy for these matters.

Arf