[mburbank]

So you were just perusing his website, right? You didn't read about the quote and then follow a link there?
-Me

What the hell does that have to do with anything, Max?
-You

It has to do with my contention that you are allowing yourself to be manipulated. You were driven like a cow to a speciffic set of sentences that would make your blood boil, and it did. I've doone the same thing, but I promise you, I'm always thinking about and suspicious of the motives of the folks doing the driving. They had a goal for you and they achieved it. Go back and look at the site you followed the link from. What's their agenda? High minded debate? Information? Education? They want you to believe a quotes a quote and their moytives don't enter into it. Both sides have massive spin machines and they writ th context in which you'll view whatever you've been steered to. Don't trust them. Think for yourself.

If you look back at the things I've written here, I've rarely tried to convince you (or bully you). I'm asking that you asses how you come to your opinions with rigour and self respect. Don't be someone's chump. THAT's what the hell it has to do with anything.

"Hoping for the American soldiers to be driven out by insurgents. How is that not anti-American?"

Well, lets see. I think this is a war of adventure and I totally feel that pre-emption is a dangerous concept that strikes at the very heart of what I think America is. I think everyone that dies in this needless war on either side digs away at who we are as a people. I feel that every doollar we spend on this war makes us more vulnerable becuase this isn't about Terrorists. If I had my choice, a new president would de-americanize this war, which would be very good thing for America. But if Bush, who I think is dangerous to America wins, I hope we get driven out of Iraq by the insurgents. becuase less american kids would die and we'd stop exporting a military vision of merica I think is utterly NOT in keeping with the things I deeply love about my country. This isn't a football game. I'm not rooting for a side. I love my country and think this war and this dministration is doing terrible, tragic damage to it that it will take generations to recover from.


"We hate who, Max? The common Iraqi? The insurgents? "

If you are making a claim that anyone in this country let alone this dministration has a handle on who's who in Iraq and what they want I think you are sorely mistaken. We can roughly divide them into three ethnic groups, but beyond that we haven't got a clue. All of this talk about 'insurgents' and 'dead enders' and 'baath party holdouts' and 'Islamic extremists' is just a list we're adding to every day. We don't know who we're fighting and we don't know who's on our side. One tenth of the police we trained fought against us. Most of the rest stayed home. We don't have any idea who or what the common Iraqi is. I'm guessing what you mean by the common iraqi are the ones who greeted us with flowers and candy and still love us now. There my be some, there may be a great many, but we have no idea if they are 'common' or not.

"No, it just means that I'm not willing to call the war a total moral outrage because the administration acted unethically in lying about the reasons."

That's where we disagree. I think a war is a pretty big deal, and I think wars unethically based on lies ARE a total moral outrage. The only thing I can think of more morally outrageous are wars of pure agression and conquest, and genocide. That's like saying beating someone isn't so bad as long as you don't rape and kill them.

"Calling Michael Moore a traitor is not an emotional appeal. "
Calling an American citizen a traitor is a very serious statement. It's the tip of the iceberg McCarthy built his adventure on. Calling someone traitor for saying something is appallingly unamerican and to me highly emotionally charged. That's why Ms. Coulter likes to do it, it's a red meat word. Perhaps you used it glibly and what you really meant was 'scumbag'. I'd disagree, but then I think our president is a scumbag, and he's not just a writer, he' commander in chief. I would never call him a traitor though. Traitors are people guilty of treason. Treason is a crime punishable by imprisonment and death. Calling Moore a traitor what he writes is one step removed from Muslim extremists issuing a Fattwah on Salman Rushdie.

"leaving Saddam in power would have caused more suffering and death in the long run."
Thanks, Psychic Brandon. I might agree with you there, but I'm not so sure I know, especially since we have no way of knowing how long things are going to go the way they're going right now. Yesterday a terrorist group, most likely Al Quaeda, blew up a whole bunch of people including two buses of kindergarten kids. Now, we didn't do that, and don't think we're to blame. But Al Quadea had no foothold under Sadaam, and never carried out any terrorist attacks in Iraq. Try telling the parents of those kids they're better off in the long run since we toppled their dictator. It's very easy for us to say they're better off.