9/11: BBC recriminations and American progress

Media biast not withstanding, the war on terror goes well

from JoeUser Forums
If you think CNN is biased, you should try listening to the BBC. The BBC's partianship is so extreme at times that it just comes across as sloppy journalism. A mere symptom of a disease known as "lack of competition operating on a level playing field." The BBC lacks significant domestic competition and has slowly drifted into being completely out of touch with reality.

For example, this morning the news report (i.e. allegedly hard news) talked about the "draconian" changes to American laws "severely curtailing" American "civil rights" and "civil liberties". What draconian laws would those be? Maybe it's my weaker grasp on the English language but "draconian", to me means...well draconian.  Of course, they are vaguely alluding to the "Patriot Act" that many on the left rail against as being a "wholesale surrender of our constitutional rights".  Of course, when pressed, most on the left are not able to actually articulate what in the Patriot Act is so vile and horrible.  The rest who have actually bothered to read the Patriot Act talk about how it could potentially be abused by the government. When Michael Moore is marched away to Guantanamo Bay to be held then we can worry. In the meantime, the left should stick with the facts and not paranoid fantasies.

The BBC went on to interview "average Americans".  Based on the BBCs reports, there are no Americans except maybe a hick or two in Iowa who a) feel safe (despite the "Draconian" laws) and b) Are against the US's actions in the war on terror.  "We should be trying to find out why people hate us and solve that!" said one interviewee in Chicago. "I don't know why we're in Iraq but it's not for the reasons they told us." said another in Portland a state described by the BBC as "split" between Democrats in Republicans (in the same way, I suppose, Massachusetts is split between Democrats and Republicans no doubt).

This kind of dribble from the BBC wouldn't be so obnoxious if it weren't taking place on 9/11. The problem with the intelligentsia on the left (And I use that phrase kindly) is that they fall into moral equivalence arguments easily when confronted with undeniably heinous acts by mideast terrorists and yet amazingly at the same time have no problem turning it all around and arguing that there is no deed we don't deserve.

Here are, in my mind, my opinions that I believe no reasonable human being could possibly object to:

  • There has been no US foreign policy action  towards the Middle East that makes the United States deserving of having 4 civilian jet liners hijacked and 2 of them flown into the largest civilian building in the world, a third flown into the Pentagon and a last one targeting either the White House or Congress.
     
  • Anyone who has bothered to listen or read the arguments by the Islamo Fascists should by now realize that these guys are little more than really well armed Klu Klux Klan types. You cannot excuse the vile actions of people simply because they don't happen to be white Anglo-Saxon males. These guys are as bad as the Nazis were. But don't take my word for it, read up on their own views. If they had their way they'd have extermination camps that would make Auschwitz look like a park.
     
  • The United States has a fundamental sovereign right, having been attacked, to defend itself.  Its interests have been attacked by these forces for over a decade and using international institutions and treating these actions as law enforcement issues helped lead to 9/11.  The United States does not need the permission or blessing of any international body or group to carry out what it believes is self defense. The right of national self defense pre-exists international bodies (which some forget ones created by the United States in the first place). 

I believe that the United States has behaved extraordinarily well given the circumstances.  In the two years since 9/11 there have been no further attacks in the United States. There have been no significant terrorist attacks against the United States overseas (no USS Cole, no Embassy bombings, etc.).  The Taliban in Afghanistan is gone. Saddam Hussein is gone.

And while the BBC would describe US forces in Iraq as "bogged down", most objective people would consider the removal of Saddam Hussein with only a few hundred casualties to be an incredible achievement. Regardless if there's still snipers and uber-snipers (snipers with RPGs), Saddam is gone and the US is in control of Iraq. That several dozen troops have died is a tragedy but one must ask, what is the mortality rate per thousand per month of males aged 18-25 here in the US? I suspect in 9 months a random selection of 200,000 Americans of that demographic would show similar "casualties" from various sources. Iraq's not secure by any means but describing US troops in a "Quagmire" or being "bogged down" is a disservice to them and to those counting on those news organizations for factual reports.

And so here we are, 2 years from 9/11 and generally speaking, the War on Terror has been a great success.  Compare the progress made in the past 2 years to the first two years of World War II.  In 1943 US forces had just gotten into Italy. D-day was still in the future. And the war on Japan was still nearly 2 years from completion.  American casualties in World War II were in the hundreds of thousands.  Two years into this new campaign, troop losses still have not exceeded civilian losses from the first 9/11 attack. I would say that things are going pretty well.

9,404 views 19 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
You raised fair criticisms, so I dug more. Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech was May 1; in the four months since then, there have been 152 deaths among the approximately 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. This works out to about 300 per 100,000 annually. For the general population, I found better statistics with a bit more Googling: in 2000, the death rate among all males age 15-24 was about 150 per 100,000. So, roughly twice the death rate in Iraq as in the regular population.

(The 150,000 number comes from http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0707/p02s01-woiq.html, written July 7, right between the speech and now; the 152 is from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/09/10/national2021EDT0896.DTL, published yesterday. For the death rate per 100,000 for 15-24 year old males, http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/releases/02facts/final2000.htm.)

As for "no reasonable person...", sure, it's your opinion. But it's also a rhetorical device that I've seen Chomsky skewered for (he loves to lead with "no serious observer could deny..."), and for good reason: because it premptively labels anyone who disagrees unreasonable. However, it creates a false dichotomy, by setting it up so that you, the reasonable person, believe X, Y, and Z, while the people on the other side of the argument deny what you say and are therefore by definition unreasonable. In fact, most people who disagree with your conclusion actually largely agree with most of the premises; they just don't think the conclusion follows. It's a rhetorical device I personally consider both fallacious and distasteful, so I pointed it out.

As for O'Reilly: well, certainly bias is in the eye of the beholder to a large extent, and as much as you consider him even-handed, I consider him quite clearly conservative, with a few opinions that could be considered "liberal" (scare quotes because, for example, while opposing the death penalty is generally considered liberal, advocating gulags as an alternative, um, isn't especially). Maybe you consider his registered Republican status, and the overall Republican makeup of Fox News (O'Reilly, Ailes, Snow, etc. etc.) to be irrelevant; I don't. (shrug) Agree to disagree, I guess.
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
How would you define progress? Iraq is in allied hands. Its resources in allied hands. Its cities controlled by the allies. Progress comes in the form of getting services back up and running and building a new Iraqi government, security force, etc. All of these things are happening.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
As a Brit, I have to agree that the BBC has problems currently. The problem currently is that there seems to be an twisted symbiotic relationship between politics in the UK. It's a wierd sort of love/hate relationship which currently involves the media knocking the government for anything they do. The government is wounded and they know it.

Sure the UK government screwed up with Iraq. If they didn't lie, then they certainly twisted things a lot. Irrespective of the rights or wrongs of the Iraq conflict, the people are pissed. The press seem to feel this justification for their assault - maybe it is, maybe it's not, but the assault is definitely being executed poorly in a haphazard manner.

I would defend their description of troops (including British troops) being 'bogged down'. The truth is that if there is an exit plan it is not clear. As far as we know (as told by politicians and the media - do we believe them), things are 'progressing'. However, we never see this progress as such and there is no perception of operations winding down. Sure there is a 'rebuilding' programme but we only see an increase in troop levels and not obvious how things are 'progressing'. If the BBC were referring to being 'bogged down' in a militiary sense (as in trapped) I would agree with you entirely, but I think that in a context of 'bogged down' in the same old day-to-day operations I would agree.

Nobody is blameless in this - the politicians or the media - but I take your general point.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
First off, you are counting in combat deaths. I never claimed that civilian life is safer than actual combat. The question is how many people have died since the cessation of hostilities. The number is roughly 90. Therefore, the occupation of Iraq is about as dangerous for US soldiers as the fatality rate mentioned in your statistics.

In addition, your statistics are for all people aged 15-24. What about MALES aged 15-24. The number is probably closer to 120 or higher per 100,000 annually.

As for using the term "no reasonable person" you seem to ignore how I explicitly state "IN MY OPINION". In other words, I went out of my way not to imply that my opinion is fact.

Regarding O'Reilly as independent -- his opinions are clearly not left wing or right wing IMO. He's all over the map. My point is that most conservatives considered CNN's coverage of Iraq to be very biased (constantly over emphasizing the difficulties US troops were having during the early battles). But CNN can't hold a candle to the BBC.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
According to http://www.disastercenter.com/cdc/allcause.html, the overall death rate for people aged 15-24 in the U.S. in 1996 was about 90 people per 100,000 annually. That means that in six months (the Iraq invasion began March 20), if the casualty rates were approximately equal to that of the general population, we should have expected approximately 90 deaths (180 per 200,000 annually). So far, there have been 340 deaths among coalition soldiers during the invasion. To me, these cursory statistics mean that at the very least, deaths among the military have outpaced those in the general population by a factor of over 3.5 to 1.

And, am I the only one who immediately gets suspicious when someone starts throwing out phrases like "most objective people" or "no reasonable human being could object..."? I immediately think of Noam Chomsky; it's one of his favorite rhetorical devices, usually when he's concocting a straw man. Speaking of which...

Most people who objected to the war in Iraq would not have disagreed with your points a-c, just the conclusion you draw from them at the very end. Hell, I supported the war in Iraq, and I disagree with your conclusion. The biggest problem is, there was no necessary connection between Iraq and terrorism, and certainly not the kind of direct connection that most Americans believe existed. Iraq is/was a secular state; they were more generally modern than much of the region; and most importantly, no ties have been proven between Iraq and any major terrorist acts or organizations (the exception is Saddam's payments to the families of suicide bombers in Israel, which, while abhorrent and criminal, hardly constitutes casus belli on the part of the U.S. and Britain).

As I said, I supported the war. I believed that conflict with Saddam was inevitable, so better it happen now, when Iraq is weak, than later, after oil revenues have helped build up Iraq's military, and especially better now than after Hussein eventually got nuclear weapons. The Iraqi-democracy-domino theory is the closest I've seen to tying Iraq in with the war on terror, and it's um, an unproven theory at this point, to say the least. In short, yes, I supported invading Iraq, but "preventing another 9/11" wasn't one of the reasons; rather, preventing another North Korea was more like it. "Preventing another 9/11" is why I support more vigorous reconstruction of Afghanistan, and why I supported that invasion as well.

Finally, at the beginning, you allude to CNN being "biased" (presumably liberally). I just have to point out that when discussing Fox News a short while ago, you held up O'Reilly as a "true independent." When hired on at Fox (by former Nixon/Reagan/Bush I media consultant Roger Ailes), O'Reilly was a registered Republican. If a registered Republican hired by a Republican operative is an independent, my feeling is that the political spectrum has been significantly shifted. Sorry if I don't find this, taken together, as entirely reasonable when determining who's biased and who isn't.

That said, yes, the BBC is way out there.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
Re O'reilly: Being in favor of gay marriage is not moderate. That's the problem with some people on the left. They consider their views so "civilized" that something like support of gay marriage is just a "moderate" view. Same for gun control.

Re Fox News: I have already posted on that topic -- I have said that they lean to the right about as much as CNN leans to the left. I think FNC leans to the right because its people are conservatives which is why I suspect most other media centers tend to lean to the left -- because the people who work there are liberal.

Comparing Carville to Brit Hume damages your argument IMO. Brit Hume is conservative but there's a big gulf between Brit Hume and say Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh is as partisan right as Carville/Franken are on the left. There are a lot of shades inbetween those extremes. Brit Hume is to the right what Dan Rather is on the left.
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
One more comment about troops in iraq: As I said, I favored the war, and I strongly favor our continued presence there. My point is not that Iraq is too dangerous, or isn't worth it, or whatever; but rather, that we need to be totally frank about the costs involved, and not be misleading, or embrace dubious comparisons.
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
Rhetorical devices: Alright, fair enough. It's splitting hairs, and I'll drop it.

Casualty rates: The reason it's important is that lots of people have said similar stuff lately ("being a soldier in Iraq is no more dangerous than x") without quoting any stats, and when you look up the stats, it's not true. Beyond that, in my opinion, it's worth looking at similar occupations (e.g. Bosnia) to decide how relatively dangerous Iraq is - comparing it to all types of civilian life kind of misses the point.

O'Reilly: And in turn, I suspect you've fallen for the rightist view that anyone with a couple of socially moderate views is an independent. Again: this guy is a registered Republican, on a Republican-run and -staffed network. In what world doesn't this matter? And again: O'Reilly's "liberal" views are often not all that liberal; with regard to gay rights, for example, check http://www.townhall.com/columnists/billoreilly/bo20020323.shtml:

"...It is flat-out prejudicial to deprive responsible homosexuals of the right to save kids from transient foster care.

That being said, there is no question that if all unwanted children could be adopted by loving heterosexual couples, that would be the optimum. Nature dictates this. Nature has decreed that the natural order of parenting is a man and a woman who procreate. Gays can spin all day long, but you can't change the natural state of the human condition."

This isn't the view of any liberal I know. It's absolutely true that favoring gay adoption isn't lockstep right wing; but like I said, having a few socially moderate views does not an independent make. The guy is a Republican on a conservative network, was hired by conservatives, and tends to hammer liberals a hell of a lot harder than he hammers conservatives. You're right, he's not Ann Coulter - but that doesn't make him an independent.

Lookit: Bernie Goldberg et al get a ton of mileage among conservatives by pointing out that since journalists tend to be registered Democrats, and have socially liberal views (though they're economically conservative as a group), that therefore the media is liberally biased. Most conservatives I know accept this. But Fox News somehow gets a pass on this methodology - why is that? Can you possibly conceive that if James Carville was picked by George Soros to run a network, and Carville hired Al Franken as a host, that Franken could be called "independent" because he's expressed "mushy middle" opinions on gun control, or because he might be a budget hawk?
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
Brab: In what way did bush "lie" about WMD? Bush's position was the same as the Clinton position. In addition, what "sold" the war was Saddam's non-compliance with UN resolutions. If the police think you have drugs in your home and you refuse to let them in your house despite a warrant and they break in and it turns out you don't have any drugs, does that mean the police are in the wrong? No. They had a warrant. Saddam had agreed to abide by UN resolutions as part of the 1991 cease fire.

Re the Taliban, you'll have to excuse me if I'm not too worried about the Taliban. Afghanistan and other failed states are only significant problems if terrorists are allowed to work freely and undistributed in building up their capability. That is not the case in Afghanistan.

Terrorism will never be eliminated. Anyone who thinks the goal is to eliminate terrorism will never be satisfied. The goal is to keep the level of terrorism manageable. To make sure it doesn't exceed a threshold we can tolerate as well as realistically maintain.

In another year, Iraq will likely be well on its way to self governing. It will have its own security forces and vital services will have long been restored. American troops will still be in Iraq but located mostly in bases outside major areas. If we're still losing on average a trooper a day to attacks in Iraq a year from now, then there may be cause for concern.

But let's bear in mind, we lost more troops going into Siciliy in World War II. The difference is now the media sensationalizes and paints a darker picture of every happening because unlike back in 1943, the media today has its own agenda that it completely untied to attempting any sort of objective truth.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
True, the medias lie. Or they don't talk about things.
But look at some examples. Didn't Bush lie about WMD ? I know the current propaganda is "it's not about WMD anymore", but it's how the war was sold in the first place. I see this as damage control (the administration got caught lying, they need to do something about it).

As concerns Afghanistan, I must say that I am more worried about the situation there than Iraq. See this, for instance:
http://www.agonist.org/archives/008181.html#008181
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
New feature needed: quoting.

Re rhetorical devices: Chornsky says things like "No reasonable person can deny...". I, on the other hand, did not say that. I said, in MY opinion, no reasonable person. The difference is signfiicant because one is unqualified, the other is. The former implies that his opinion is already excepted fact. The other leaves open for others to disagree. I didn't write the extra words "in my opinion" for no reason. I considered it an important qualification.

Re casualty rates. I submit that based on your stats it's more dangerous to be a soldier in Iraq than to be a civilian in North America. But the difference isn't all that extreme. Particularly when one considers the rhetoric coming from the media.

Re O'Reilly. I suspect you are falling for the prevailing leftist view that if one doesn't agree overwhelmingly with the left's agenda then you're right wing. O'Reilly's views on gays, gay marriages, gun control, and many other issues are certainly not right wing.

To Bill:
Re civilian casualties: I don't know Bill, how many civilians have died. Do you have a statistic? The left was claiming that hundreds of thousands of civilians would die. The number is vastly lower than that. Given the many tens of thousands of bodies dug by allied forces, many of whom were women and children, it woudl seem that American forces care more about Iraqi civilians than Saddam did.

Speaking of word uses, in what way is valuing the lives of Americans more than Iraqi's "naive"? At most, it would be cynical. But not naive.

Which reminds me, why do those who lack debating skills constantly fall on the patronizing of others habit? Bill, if you've read my articlesyou would know that I'm hardly ignorant on world affairs. Here's a clue: My "knowledge" is not determined by whether I agree with your opinions or not.

Irorny of the day: Bill writes: "If you stay in and watch the TV "news" in the USA, you'll learn very little about the world outside your comfort zone." in response to an article that was about listening to the BBC (here's a hint: the BBC is not TV news in the USA).
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
I agree we are making progress but as soon as the masses see a 'roadmap' then we will all understand better how far there is to go. If you are driving to an unfamiliar location, it doesn't matter whether you are 2 or 200 miles away, the kinds in the back will always yell 'Are we nearly there yet?' unless you tell them how close to the final destination you are.
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
It's that kind of naive world view, one which values "our" US lives over the lives of people of other nations, which is exactly the world view held by the evil men who attacked the US. How many Iraqi civilians have died in the last few months at the hands of your government. Your discussion of average general mortality is obscene and a truly sickening comparison. Your comments showed you completely do not understand the situation. "Progress comes in the form of getting services back up and running and building a new Iraqi government, security force, etc. All of these things are happening." Not yet, and not quickly enough.
If you stay in and watch the TV "news" in the USA, you'll learn very little about the world outside your comfort zone.
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
Right, that was my point: my views are more "civilized" than the barbarians on the right. Exactly what I meant, or tacitly projected. That's the problem with some people on the right: they consider anything less than the Republican platform to be liberal elitism.

But anyways, I Googled for a couple of minutes to see exactly how out-of touch we liberal extremists are. And - surprise! - for O'Reilly's "liberal" positions, it turns out that he's got a lot of company. One might even say that some of these opinions are moderate.

O'Reilly favoring gun control is absolutely mainstream - most people agree with him (http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=89 - 63% favored stricter gun control in May 2000.)

O'Reilly favoring gay rights in general: Wasn't able to find a recent poll easily and don't care to keep digging, but large majorities have favored non-discrimination in housing and employment for some time. Being pro-gay rights in these areas is totally moderate.

O'Reilly favoring gay adoption is moderate (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/gayadopt_poll020402.html - 47% in favor, 42% against as of 3/31/02.)

In favoring gay marriage, O'Reilly is in a not-insignificant minority. But once again, so far as I've seen, he's not championing it as an actual liberal would, but rather accepting that it will happen and he's fine with it, a more moderate position that is certainly far different than that of the real-life liberals at, say, Human Rights Campaign or the ACLU.

Carville isn't comparable to Brit Hume in my analogy: he's comparable to Roger Ailes, Fox News' CEO, who's a longtime Republican operative. Fox News is *incredibly* Republican - *much* more so than CNN is Democratic. Fox News is the right-wing equivalent of the left-wing BBC - shills for a particular worldview. CNN isn't near either one.
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
Draginol: I thought Bush said he had proof that Iraq had WMD. If he did have proof, why didn't he show it ? If he did not, he lied.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
I would have to say that the BBC does have a strong point regarding the problems with the Patriot Act, though. Check the following articles.

http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/03/09/14/1848213.shtml?tid=103&tid=123&tid=99
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=8&u=/ap/20030914/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/anti_terror_laws_2
(title: Top Stories - AP New Terror Laws Used Vs. Common Criminals )
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
Brad,
while I totally supported the war in Iraq I have to diasagree with a number of your statements.

You stated that 'There has been no US foreign policy action ...', but this is a very biased opinion. You believe this. Most Americans probably believe this. Millions, probably billions of people worldwide do not believe this. The key to this lack of belief is Israel. American has a love relationship with Israel that Muslims throughout the whole world just cannot understand. America will invade Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction and suppossedly how it treats it's citizens but it would never even consider that Israel mistreats it's citizens. As long as this goes on then America DOES have a foreign policy that millions of people believe makes them a target. It's a fact. You may disagee, but they also disagree with you. Who is right?

You stated that 'Anyone who has bothered to listen or ... '. I totally agree with you. These people are terrorists. So were the KKK. So are most so called freedom fighters worldwide. They use often ligitamate greviances to justify their hate and violence.

You stated that 'The United States has a fundamental sovereign ... '. If this is true then it applies to any country and not just the US. Where doyou draw the line? Physical attacks? Providing financial money to enemies of the state? Moral attacks? Undermining what your country stands for? Your beliefs? Suddenly this becomes very very dangerous ground. If the US demands this right because some terrorists never linked to Iraq carried out a despicable act of terrorism, then what's to stop some muslim demanding this right because American companies are undermining their way of life? What's to stop Chile bombing the US for the CIA's assasination of it's president? The US has NO moral right. It's got one of the worst records in history. Be honest, what you mean is 'We have the POWER, and the POWER gives us the right'. I personally feel that NO country or person EVER has a fundamental right to use offensive force under the guise of defence. Are there times when this is required? YES. Is it a fundamental right? NO.

In my opinion, the US has messed up very badly in IRAQ. I totally believe it was right to invade, but not because of tentative (and looking very unfounded) claims of weapons of mass destruction, but because they felt that it was the lesser of two evils. They should have the guts to stand up for that. They should also have regained the moral high ground by then passing the buck on to the UN. Giving it the role of rebuilding and restructuring Iraq. That way no one could accuse them of trying to get the oil, or giving all the restructuring jobs to their companies.

You started your Blog discussing the BBC and I'll finish on that. I live in the UK and will totally admit the the BBC is very biased. But reports need to be kept in context. The primary reason the BBC feeling that the new American laws severly curtain civil rights is that they have. What would you say to people who have spent months locked away with no laywer, no trial, no access to UN gaurenteed basic human rights? 'You're guilty so you deserve it'? What about the UK pilot who spent 6 months in prison awaiting the FBI to file charges of training the 9/11 pilots, which it eventually admitted were wrong?

No Brad, absolutism and rights of revenge can never be justified no matter how bad the hurt and anger.

Paul.

Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
The attacks on American aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone should have been enough. The mass graves were enough once we got in.

Besides Iraq, what nations were denying that Iraq had WMD? No one. They all said they believed they had them. Iraq's own documents proved it did but could then not prove that they had in fact destroyed them. The WMD argument is rather base. Everyone knew they had them. The inspectors went in for a reason - not a blind gesture of goodwill towards Iraq.

And when one compares death rates, could someone be bothered to Google up these stats for me?

How many civilians would have died or have been tortured under Saddam's hands since the initiation of hostilities and then compare that to how many have. I'm going to guess that you won't be able to find the stats for the first part, as the totalatarian regime wasn't in the habit of releasing the numbers of how many it maimed and killed on a daily, weekly, monthly, or even yearly basis. But if the numbers of people in the mass graves are any indication - then I'm going to guess that number would be quite large.

Instead of rejoicing the fall of a tyrant and sending sentiments of peace - why must you rage at the doing of right even if in the end, one of the many reasons turns out to be not so neatly tied up and delivered for you? Baffling.
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top
TidelPoet,
not sure whose comments you're responding to. Most comments here are in support of the war. I totally supported the need to remove Saddam. It's sad that the job wasn't done properly the first time. How many thousands of Iraqi civilians died because of that cock-up?
Just because people support the war does not automatically mean they agree with Draginol's "no reasonable human being could possibly object to" points. I objected to points one and three, not to the war though.

Paul.