Actually, we did have something like that -- if you consider that approximately 8,000 of the 70,000 Loyalists who fled were African Americans who had responded to the British government's offer of freedom for any who joined the king's forces. They fled slavery and, when the war was lost, they had the choice of returning to slavery or going to Canada.

But no comparison is perfect.

So you say. But except for those in our military, nobody in the States had paid much of a price for this particular good deed. The Iraqis have paid plenty and, I'll wager, the thousands killed and their families might not appreciate the favor.

He would also say, "If you keep doin' what you've always done, then you're always gonna get what ya always got." By this reasoning, what will "surging" do?

I'm going to argue that the U.S. should be more humble by re-acting more slowly/cautiously and by (frankly) doing our cultural homework before BUMBLING into a quagmire.

I am horrified at many of the things Saddam and Osama have done, though I don't believe they have anything to do with each other. Similarly, I am grateful for and proud of many things that Americans and our leaders have done. Obviously however, we could agree that we are ashamed of some of the conduct of our citizens, leaders and underlings alike. We might also agree that we make mistakes and that sometimes we feel forced into doing things that we (at least later) regret.

So what does it mean that the US is currently the world "super power"? We can beat anybody in a weapon-to-weapon fight on an open playing field. However, as history has shown us innumerable times might does not make right. An example in this country could be when DNA evidence proves that a person did not commit the crime they have already been put to death for. It's a terrible tragedy, though one can never undo this or any other mistake.

This is why the balance of powers and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty are arguably what have defined us as a nation since its conception.

So what should happen when we learn we've attacked and essentially taken power of a sovereign country because our leaders told us that we were in "imminent danger" of being attacked with weapons of mass destruction by people in that country (and besides, the leader is a "bad" person), only to find later no evidence of the weapons or the capability of procuring, producing or deploying them? In the meantime, tens of thousands of people have been killed and orders of magnitude more people have been injured, displaced and endangered by our country's actions?

You know the old adage, "What does a 500 pound gorilla eat? A: Anything it wants." I think we are that gorilla. "We" may have collectively done the best we could so far, though it seems that it has been at the expense of some of our founding principles; the very ones that so many other countries have admired and adopted. We can see that citizens in those countries feel increasingly disillusioned by the character of the U.S. because of what looks like our "Shoot, then ask questions" behavior. I think we can change those perceptions, though.

In 1986 the USA withdrew itself from compulsory jurisdiction of the rulings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This was because...we could. Also, because we are "the" super power we can do what we want without holding our actions up to the scrutiny of the wisdom of the rest of the world. Well, the bully in the sandbox always ultimately becomes isolated, unsupported and admonished, even when the bully "needs" help.

I think we should take the United Nations and all of its charters more seriously by announcing, and more importantly demonstrating, that we will humbly comply with all of the ICJs decisions. We can still be a SUPER power, but by leading by example instead of a gun barrel.

Otherwise, we might as well be saying to the Iraqis, "Let them eat cake."

I don't agree that we've done a good thing. Besides, those were not the reasons W gave to invade Iraq, remember WMDs and the threat he supposedly posed to our country? Iraq under Saddam's control was not a threat to anyone except possibly Iran, and we had Saddam contained in his box. Now what do we have? A mess we can't fix. The solutions i've read about that are being considered are splitting the country into three part, Sunni, Shia and Kurd. Have you read about the wall the US is building? This is a huge gift to Iran, creating an oil-rich ally where there once was an enemy. The other solution is installing a strongman to keep the country in one peice, kinda like the situation we had with saddam in power...except this is the devil we don't know.

I don't think anyone seriously thinks democracy is going to be the final solution in Iraq. The surge is a way to extend the inevitable collapse of W's Iraq project, so that it may fall on the next president's watch. Unfortunately for W, I think most people and history will realize that this is Bush's war.

You're kind of all over the place in the last post, but, can you give me an example of a country you think is "humble" and one that the U.S. should model itself after?

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

I remember four reasons Bush used for going to war against Iraq:

• Systematic violation of the terms of the 1991 Cease Fire.
• Pursuit of Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear weapons.
• Human Rights Violations ("The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages -- leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained -- by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.")
• Links to Terrorist Groups

All of these seem to hold up pretty well today.

Well, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel, Europe and anywhere else the terrorists he sheltered decided to attack.
That was a Joe Biden idea which the Administration rejected out of hand (a "non-starter" Tony Snow called it). Looking for hare-brained schemes Joe Biden's dreamt up is like hunting in the zoo.Highly unlikely. While Mooky al-Sadir is cozying up with the Iranians, his power is waning for exactly that reason. While both countries are majority shia, the culutral, linguistic, and nationalistic differences are far too great.
While we may come to the conclusion that the muslim world is incapable of co-existing with civilization, I don't think that's a forgone conclusion at this time. To suggest that the Iraqi people should live under threat of having their children raped or fed to dogs if they should disagree with the ruler is a bit premature, IMHO.[/quote]
I'm currious, when you talk with people who've served in Iraq, do they share your assessment that things are collapsing there, or will inevitably collapse? Because the ones I talk to, they don't share that opinion. Quite the opposite in fact.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

So can anyone explain to me why so many people are down on this idea of splitting Iraq up? It's an articical nation, a creation of British colonization, made up of people with different ethnic and religious backgrounds that don't get along. Seems like the Sunni population would naturally blend into Syria, the Shiite into Iran, and I would be happy to see a Kurdistan (screw Turkey). It just seems like one of several examples of a poorly considered creation of a state using mountains, rivers and other arbitrary borders rather than dividing things by cultures.

Really, a lot of countries are artificial (all of Africa, Pakistan, Israel, etc.) The major problem with it is that the oil isn't evenly distributed and all sides want a share of the oil revenue.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

I think it's disingenuous to point to violation of a U.N. treaty as justification for war when the U.N. itself did not find that to be adequate justification. It's still MORE disingenuous to omit that the primary offense was ejecting weapons inspectors when Iraq reversed itself on that point on the eve of the war. The inspectors at the time said they were getting full access, but were nevertheless withdrawn as the bombs started falling. (If blowing off the United Nations is cause for regime change, more than one U.S. president would have found himself in a Hague jail cell.)

Pursuit is...what? Wanting them? Maybe Saddam did want them. Not a crime. Nothing has ever been found.

The Iraq Body County project puts Iraqi civilian deaths as of March 1 at between 57,482 and 63,421. Bush knew going in that people would die and said as much in his March 19, 2003, speech announcing the invasion. To those, add the various military deaths and "injuries" (lost arms, legs and other body parts).

So. We have two scumbags -- Saddam and Dubya -- in positions of undeserved authority. Both had goals for whose attainment they were/are willing to trade the lives of thousands of other human beings. I fail to see a qualitative difference here.

Ever heard of the Contras? How about Pervez Musharaff? The United States has plenty of "links" to terrorists. Again, if that were a crime, more than one U.S. president would be eating off a tin plate.

Not exactly. If you recall, we ceased combat opperations when he agreed to the terms of the treaty. When he ceased to hold to the terms of the treaty, we were well within our rights to resume combat opperations.

The weapons inspectors were supposed to VERIFY the destruction of known stockpiles of WMDs, not look around to see if they could find any. Saddam never complied with this term.



Not quite again. Pursuit is maintaining a program that's capable of producing them. We found reference strains for Botulinum and Anthrax which are keys in producing Bio Weapons.
We also found weapons grade plutonium and mustard and VX gases, all of which are forbidden under the 1991 cease fire.

The IBC classifies all non-uniformed combatants as civilian, so you need to factor in Zacharias Mussawi, and his al Queda bretheren into that number. Also, the vast majority of the remaining "civilian" casualties were the result of terrorist bombings.
U.S. troops do not target "civilians" and while innocents are killed in any war, trying to lump any signficant responsibility on the U.S. is dishonest.

Please see 2000 and 2004 elections for why Bush's authority is deserved.

The qualitative difference is that Saddam started this war by choosing to disregard the terms of the cease fire he agreed to. He chose to sacrifice thousands of lives to keep his brutal stranglehold on the Iraqi people. Bush responded to Saddam's provocations in the only way that a responsible leader could and in doing so brought freedom and human rights to 25 million people.
Do you see the difference now?

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

I'm sure the irony of that statement is lost on Tannhauser.

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"Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness."

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973)