too much for me

Madam???

just a mistake when editing my personal preferences....

besides, what IS gender? what IS Gender bias?

haven't felt like changing it back yet

They won't let me call myself Lord Almighty High and Magnificent JamMeister33......
so I guess I'll just have to make do....

Auguste - you seem to be believing the CNN version of Homeland Security and the WAR ON TERROR. We never did get invaded or attacked by Afganis. We actually don't know who the 19 hijackers were, it seems most were using false identities stolen a couple years before. Their nationalities are listed as Saudi Arabian, Egyptian and I think a Yemenite and maybe a Syrian (don't remember now).

But according to Robert Mueller of the FBI there isn't a single shred of evidence connecting any of them to anyone or any group in Afganistan. So, why did Bush and Cheney insist there be no investigation into 9/11? That really bugged me, in fact it totally pissed me off. When it became public that they were going around behind the scenes telling (begging even) Senators and Congressmen there can't be any investigation, suddenly they change their minds and allow a cursory investigation headed by a CIA guy (since Kissinger, their first choice was too much even for CNN). The other investigation started by Congress was stonewalled by both the FBI and the CIA. The reports of some of the hijackers having been involved in programs at highly secured military bases (even the DLI for chrissakes, a spy school) was met, in a congressional hearing, with this from a base commander "We won't tell you anything, it's classified" Was he there? "I won't say" We'll just call the base and check "They've been instructed not to talk to you". Just great... but you're comforted because we invaded Afganistan.

Osama Bin Laden worked for the CIA. His group, the Mujahedeen (now Al-Qaida), were trained at Ft Benning in the art of inflicting terror. Ostensibly, this was to bug the Soviets... or was that all there was to it? We'll probably never know the whole truth but the bits we do know are enough to demand some changes in the way our government does things. Not that they'll listen.

Although, last I heard the terrorist training facility at Ft Benning (the School of the Americas) was being closed because of public pressure, after churning out thousands of blood thirsty murderous terrorists that are responsible for hundreds of thousands of civillian deaths and unspeakable terrorist crimes all over the world.

Don't forget, this is all about 9/11. That's where the justification comes from. Like the Patriot Act (which was conveniently already written beforehand). Why doesn't anyone want to know who really was behind 9/11? Why was the timing so good coming on the exact day after we had moved our invasion force to the Middle East (for an unprecedented "war games" on a scale never seen before - they say) and in the exact 4 week window we had given for our invasion of Afganistan and the overthrow of the Taliban in the meeting in Brussels with foriegn ministers from Pakistan, India, Great Britain and a few others that took place in June 2001?

Why didn't the FBI or the CIA alert the airports to watch for these guys when they had 4 names and the plans 8 days before? Why did the FBI sabatoge the efforts of 2 different teams investigating the actual terror cells that did the hijacking?? Why was the head of the FBI's anti-terror squad who personally altered documents requesting a search warrant and hid the concurrent investigations from each other PROMOTED?

Why did George Bush sit silently in a classroom in Florida for over half an hour while America was being attacked? He did nothing, just sat there, knowing 4 planes have been hijacked, two had plowed into the WTC one was headed for the pentagon. No one knew (supposedly) what was going on so he could have been a target too. Why sit in a classroom full of children endangering all their lives? For 45 minutes! Not until some twenty minutes after the second plane hit the WTC did someone come in and get him... too strange to believe.

David: read my post to paxx. It smacks of opportunism when you guys start ranting the moment a bomb drops, and never present an alternative to the bombs. If you want to show that you care about the victims of war, decide what should be done about Saddam Hussein's treatment of his people, or what he might do to others. Hell, if you can find a way to avert wars without aggression, why deny the world your wisdom? Don't waste your time talking about the past, pony up and work on the future!

Thing is, you don't want to address anything actively, you just wanna second guess, reacting to people who courageously, if imperfectly, *make* hard decisions. It is much easier picking apart US policy bumbles in the past than actually coming up with effective policy now. That would take accountability, something pundits don't need in order to thrive.

Write a book, go stand on a corner and preach, fine. This is the century of the Pundit, i'm afraid. I've yet to hear a reasonable opinion on what *should* be done about Iraq, just a lot of what shouldn't.

"What should be done about Iraq" for the benefit of Bakerstreet

First, we need to assume that there is an emergency to "do" something. The Bush administration has told us that Saddam poses an immediate threat to America's mainland, and her interests abroad. Is this true? sorry, no one seems to believe this, including the CIA. No evidence of this threat has been brought forward and the falsified documents and false intelligence leads only add to the overall lack of credibility.

I heard an Iraqi citizen interviewed that had an interesting opinion. He said, Saddam and his guys had already killed everyone they thought was a threat to their regime and stolen all the money. When a new guy takes his place then he will start the killing and stealing all over again. Then he quoted an Arab proverb "the face you know is better than the face you don't know". A simplistic idea but probably born from ages of experience.

Since the WMD tactic wasn't going over well, now we are going to liberate the Iraqi people. Oddly, it seems most Iraqi people don't want us to liberate them. Oddly, Iraq's neighbors, all of whom are the only countries in the world that actually do face some degree of threat from Saddam, don't want us to do this either.

I say, do nothing except this, take all our troops out of Saudi Arabia. We should not be there. Buy oil from the countries that produce it at the price they want for it. Cut back our military spending to about 200 billion and work on improving the accountability and efficiency (they supposedly 'lost' over a trillion dollars in the last 6 years).

And then:
Stop spreading corporate libertarianism through the WTO and IMF. Get rid of foreign money markets and sanctify national currencies again. Demand that charted corporations start acting like good citizens, taking the public interest into account and if they don't behave shut them down and prosecute the board and the execs. Nationalize (un-privatize) all water and power suppliers. Promote food production, from small private farms to larger commercial ventures. Open pharmaceutical patents to all the world for cheap production of needed drugs. Remove GWB and his whole administration from office since his presidency has no legitimacy. Do away with "classified for reasons of national security" on anything that doesn't directly affect troops. Too many crimes are hidden that way. Develop cheap alternative power sources to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. Sign and abide by all international treaties regarding biological weapons, nuclear testing, nuclear proliferation, land mines, emissions, pollution, human rights, and be the leader in all these areas, bringing new treaties to the world constantly. Put some realistic limits on compensation and bonuses for execs, for the average CEO salary to be 500 times the wages of the company's workers is obscene. In 1980 it was only 50 times, by 1999 it had grown to 150 times and today it's 500 times. Criminalize the hostile take-over strategy of acquiring a company only to sell off its assets, fire employees, load it up with debt from a bank you own so it pays interest instead of taxes, and move as much of it as you can to a third world country to further reduce costs, externalize expenses like pollution controls and avoid taxes, while providing diminished quality at higher prices. Support and even protect cultural diversity rather than trying to "Americanize" the world. I could go on but I'm sure I've not only already lost you but you're already typing an insult at how naive I am.

Fact is, the world is a dangerous place because our leaders are dangerous criminals. We have not had "statesmen" in politics for far too long and that's what we need desperately now. A leader like Ghandi that could inspire us while adhering to an ethical and peaceful ideology.

To all: i was out of line saying people in the US need to be jailed for their protests against the war. I'm sorry. But people here in Oregon are getting arrestted for exactly that. They won't leave. They are blocking the streets. So the Police are making hundreds of arrests. I just wanted to say, for the record, We Americans should support our President and our troops wherever than may be or may be doing. Yes, they may have protested vietnam, and we should not hace been there. Although I am young, only 27, I do not remember seeing or reading anywhere about people protesting WW2. I just think it's weird that fellow Americans would not support the troops, but those troops are dying to make sure they can keep their freedom and opinions.

Jafo, thank you for telling that guy that my opinion is relevant.

infidels, i tell ya, they are all infidels...now...where's my beer...

Thank you Dave, you beat me to the punch by 2 minutes.

I disagree with your assertion that Iraq's neighbors are fine with Saddam. They may not want him overthrown, but they certainly DON'T want him left alone. They prefer us to continue spending billions of dollars policing their region thanklessly. If we leave, Hussein would be right back in Kuwait, and since war is not the answer, what then?

As for military spending, 'cutting back' is difficult when the majority of spending goes to retirement, healthcare, and education for ex-military personel. Who gets cut back? Will we do the world a service by abandoning it to the likes of Saddam Hussein? Should we leave South Korea to fend off the North? This seems simplified, but all this spending adds up to the total.

Your other suggestions are good, but they are really general:

"Saddam and his guys had already killed everyone they thought was a threat to their regime and stolen all the money. "

What's with the no-fly zone, then? who are we protecting? You think he would let the Kurdish opposition sit and plot his demise?

"Sign and abide by all international treaties regarding biological weapons, nuclear testing, nuclear proliferation, land mines, emissions, pollution, human rights":

How is this possible when 99% of them are written with punitive trade manuvering in mind, not actual care for the safely of the world. How can you get parties to agree with they have written the laws to harm other nations?

"Remove GWB and his whole administration from office since his presidency has no legitimacy. "

Huh? Only the legitimacy lent it by the US constitution.

"Develop cheap alternative power sources to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels."

Kina general isn't it? Why not speak faster-than-light travel into existance while you are at it?

**

You aren't giving ways to change the world, you are simply suggesting outcomes of change. You assume in all these cases that your concept of all these issues will be shared by those in charge, and that they won't use these new ventures to cement their own power or do harm to others. You know how lawmaking works; if everyone agrees on a law, lawmakers see it as leeway to tag a controversial rider onto it. That goes double for international law.

No offense, but I, too, could sit down and make a list of things i would like to see changed. I wouldn't presume to promote them as 'ideas' unless i had enough fleshed out to make them actually possible to do.

Hey I have a cold one for ya hope you like bud. Whats 666 mean? I come from a long line of navy and army forefathers so I remain true to the President and our tropps. If I could, I would want to fight to.

"I say, do nothing except this, take all our troops out of Saudi Arabia."

what, you can't read?

International diplomacy has never been less effective or more self-serving than it is today. We should work for a stronger international alliance and a stronger UN rather than the regretable course we're taking.

Apparently Saddam hasn't actually done any atrocities like the very publicized ones we keep hearing about for twelve years. Seems a bit presumptuous for us to be so concerned about the Iraqi people now when the Gulf War and the sanctions seemed to be containing him pretty well.

We spanked Gadahfi and he turned into a pretty good leader for his country and stopped getting involved in terrorism. Without a war. Bush and his cabinet of corporate execs and attorneys don't have the skills for international diplomacy.

Here's my solution to help the Iraqi people (and the region, and the rest of the world). Pull our troops out of Saudi Arabia. Let the UN take care of Iraq until America has a president that is capable of dealing with international affairs. Disband the CIA (and all the other stuff in my post above, that's important). Removce the Bush group from power and actually "elect" a president in an election that has NO special interest money financing the campaigns. If America can't come up with a leader that is worthy of the position then stay the hell out of international affairs until we do and try to fix some of the problems here in the US.

BTW...120 (or more) people got arrested in Portland, Oregon, for protesting and blocking city streets.