Semi personal reply...

I truly apologize to you and the group for the "hit and run" I pulled yesterday (and probably today). I am coordinating a data center move, yadayada...

My only point, two days ago I went to an orthopedic to schedule surgery on my knee. I had to wait two hours to see him. Two of his fellow doctors were called up that morning (active duty) and had two days to show up. When the gov activates these dudes, it means a couple of weeks... No doubt. I saw this passion play unfold and the US government scripted this months ago and have not deviated one ion from their script.

Gentlemen, we are going to war. I have never accepted the theory of a "just" war, as war is simply war and the "justness" determined for centuries to come... Were the Romans "just" in taking Egypt? yadayada yada... At this point, I am going to take a stance behind the men in the military and not give them any grey area to come home to. My personal beliefs are almost irrelevent.

I watched a bunch of self serving hedonistic hippycrits call my brother a baby killer, adfuckinghominemnauseum, for serving in Viet Nam. Most of these self serving hedonistic hippycrits are now in the government. Just as the sons of bitches that went to college instead of WWII served up Viet Nam to my brother's generation, just as the self serving hedonistic sons of bitches that went to college and avoided WWI served up WWII to them... See a pattern. Chicken Hawks? "Just" wars? Then there's the poor soldiers that actually fight these things.

I'm not going to add insult to injury to the kids currently serving. YMMV... It's a free country, you're just as entitled to your opinion.

We never considered *for an instant* what! it was that the people there wanted -- also would die to defend. We were such naifs. Now we have earned, cynical-naifs. Imagine the Terrorism of B-52s dwarfing all of WW-II tonnage on that tiny place.

It was begun from a bloody academic 'domino-theory' and fed by a McNamara, an odious small man who kept the logistics Looking Good until - we were in there hook, line and sinker. (I almost had a chance to meet him.. at a person's birthday party in Oxford. He was disinvited when the hostess realized she couldn't guarantee his 'security' - fershure not verbal security, via many others attending)

All your characterizations above apply - the Men from The Green Table (ballet) gesticulating around that table, sending off the cannon fodder on both 'sides'. Words fail but the dance can reveal.

The oafs who jeered at the young conscripts were as ignorant of this process of periodic madness then, as now. It isn't about a soldier's actual ability to refuse an order, not such as we are and such as our deadly euphemisms illustrate we are. He can't - he'll be killed too.

As for this time - sorry but, it only computes in $-terms. All we had to do was wait - and should a suicidal Saddam decide to attack (just about anyone) ..if it was a nasty enough raid?

We could do what many here would Love to do: use some of those expensive nukes, the pride and joy of Jedi Masters of Destruction Technology. "Nuke from orbit" has replaced "As American as Apple Pie" in the lexicon - had you not noticed? Say it enough times (like the really unconvincing propaganda du jour) and you can't remember when it wasn't said.

Support the troops - as ever they are the goats. Jeer at one only after facing self in mirror many times (especially anyone who didn't bother to vote last time). This affair comes straight from the Top:

The only groundswell this time is concave, not convex. And the blame is diffuse - a 'loyal opposition' with no guts + a perfect excuse to find any substitute imaginable, to scapegoat for the small band of perps we have been unable to deal with. What country do you assign a cabal to? (We've found a few work-arounds - not including the country of origin of 95% of these attackers. Yet. Wonder why that is?)

My father wasn't jeered at - just offed in the final days of WW-II - the perhaps last 'honorable' and unavoidable war. We left that one as ~ the sole functioning industrial base anywhere, for our distance from all of the bombing. Now we have infinitely more 'wealth' to guard, but the bomb has reached River City anyway.

Ashcroft raises the 'threat level' to high - just Now. Best get used to that and.. after our Blitzkrieg, what's Higher than high?

Ashton

Welcome to IWETHEY!