Re: put andreas on suicide watch

quoth Guillaume Laurent:

| Why not ? Do you think they will eventually be found ?

i suspect that yes, they probably will. there is no question that they 
existed, because they were used in a campaign of genocide against the 
kurds and iranians. this is a matter of fact.

| > no one ever claimed that there was a huge imminent threat.
|
| Then how would you describe the way Iraq was described by the US
| government prior to the war ?

what the president said was that we needed to take down saddam before he 
bacame an imminent threat -- the time to deal with the pistol is before 
it is cocked and held to your head.

| Could you elaborate ? Which leaders ?

teddy kennedy, tom daschle. numerous others.

| Do you think that the way the US are seen in the middle east has
| improved ? That no more people will be inclined to turn to terrorism
| ?

at some point -- and i daresay that point was achieved september 11, 
2001 -- popularity becomes a secondary concern, in my estimation. as to 
people turning to terrorism, that is a more complicated issue, because 
it has become the way that anyone who wants anything now achieves it. 
it is the way whereby those who lack the political clout or military 
muscle to impose their will can nevertheless be heard. this is 
irrespective of the issue itself, the means rather than the end. the 
unibomber was a terrorist. kathy boudin was a terrorist. the narodniki 
employed terrorism nearly 150 years ago. the aminal rights bozos are 
employing terrorism. so i fear we're stuck with terrorism.

| What do you think about the way the case of North Korea is handled ?

jury is still out; it's certainly unsatisfying so far. that having been 
said, it's impossible to propose that we are the world's policemen and 
then be critical of us when we behave in a way consistent with that 
role. and i think that countries have some responsibility for their own 
back yards. for instance, i am not at all certain that the u.s. had any 
business in bosnia and kosovo, not because the cause we were seeking to 
uphold was unjust but because this was something that fell more 
reasonably to european countries. (by that standard, ceteris paribus, 
our intervention in haiti *was* justified; problem there is that the 
situation was not something likely to be improved by military 
intervention. so it was geographically sound but politically screwy.)

all of which i bring up because there are countries who have more at 
risk due to a nuclear north korea run by a nutjob, and who are better 
equipped geographically and otherwise to deal with the problem. i am of 
course talking about china, which has every reason to want north korea 
to simply go away. and they could cause that to happen far more easily 
than we could.

back to the iraq situation, an interesting piece in yesterday's 
telegraph, which would have drawn far more notice were it not for the 
capture of saddam. it's well worth reading, and it's here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/12/14/wterr14.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/12/14/ixportaltop.html

this is not to say that i'm ready to swear that the story is true, but 
coughlin is a good reporter and pretty reliable, and if it turns out 
that the story is accurate it will eliminate a lot of objections people 
have had to our presence in iraq.
-- 
dep

Writing takes no time. It's finding something to say that takes forever.

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