[Preechr]

Actually, Kev, what Iraq had was uranium oxide, which is not suitable for weapons. It can make you sick, which is why it was so bad that the site it was contained within wasn't properly guarded... they found radioactive barrels being used to store rainwater in a local village right after the invasion...

Now, the whole problem with Iraq even seeking WMD materiel was that it had agreed not to do that as a condition of not being stomped into the sand post-Gulf War I. While the argument could be made that the sanctions themselves were unreasonable and imprudent, given that similar sanctions against Germany after WWI could be blamed in part for WWII, the sanctions against Iraq were still a reality and if it was seeking yellowcake in Niger, it was seeking to build nukes. That's a problem.

Combine that uranium, which is available from sources other than Niger, with those Nodongs being sought from N Korea, and you have a fully nuclear Iraq with the ability to coerce and destroy any nation within 600-1000 miles.

And Niger has uranium to sell. That's where Libya got it's yellowcake for it's nuclear program. Uranium is still that country's prime export. There's a big difference between "abandoned" and "empty." They were abandoned because nobody is supposed to be buying the stuff anymore because it's used for WsMD, which are not supposed to be being built anymore.

Libya just didn't have the money to complete it's plans to become a nuclear state... because of the sanctions against it. Thanks to the shift in American policy toward rogue states (like Libya,) it also no longer had the time required to complete the project. That's not to say that once Libya's economic picture brightens it won't restart it's WMD programs, but it could have a new leader by then as well. Despots don't live forever. Didn't we already kill his son, too? If he isn't overthrown before his natural death, Libya will likely Democratize after that happens.

As for Wilson, as I said: He was caught lying. His lies were used to fraudulently debunk a small part of the case for war, and to cast doubt on the Bushies' methodology for the rest of the reasons. If they overstated that then what else did they exaggerate, right? That's not to say some overstatement didn't occur, now. It obviously did. We knew it was happening when the case was being made. What Colin Powell didn't say, which was the primary reason for deposing Saddam, was that Iraq was a key tactical target in the larger War on Terror. We had valid reasons to do what we proposed to do, and actually deposing Saddam and reforming/freeing Iraq was just one benefit of doing it.

Iran is the most intransigent of the terrorist sponsoring states, and one that we cannot so easily "invade." From Iraq and Afghanistan, we now can apply pressure and aquire "on the ground" intelligence from the immediate East and West of Iran. We can also more effectively interact with Syria. Pulling our troops out of Saudi will hopefully allow it to begin it's own much needed reforms.

That's what this whole thing is all about: Democratizing the Middle East. That's the ultimate goal of the War on Terror. I support that goal. I believe it's OUR duty to help them to that end simply because our own mucking around in their political systems for the last 50 years has been responsible, to a point, for holding them back from more free government systems, at least in my opinion. Middle Eastern totalitarianism is, to a degree, collateral damage from the Cold War. All people deserve to be free, and if we are in any way responsible for any sort of institutionalized slavery, it is our duty to help fix that.

It's sad that we didn't shoulder this mandate without being threatened at the level of 9/11, but we were and we have, which is right even if belated. Similar to Fascist Communism in this one respect, Capitalist Democracy works it's best when all governments in the world are run with the same system. The difference is that Communism's economy can't compete with freer neighboring systems, and Democracies have too many inherent security holes to exist safely around totalitarian governments. Given the choices, I think we'd all agree that world government based in freedom for all people would be best, right?


To take it a step further, if the War on Terror simply shows the violent idiots of the world that terror can be fought effectively, terrorism may become a less attractive option for getting one's way. That would be nice, wouldn't it? Nations can no longer start a shooting war for fear of getting their asses utterly kicked by the US military, and now the same force is proving that terrorism doesn't work either... hopefully. Maybe the would-be despots of the world will just have to give peaceful means a chance.

I think I could live nicely in a world where trae sanctions and diplomatic insults are the greatest threat a nation can wield against another. How bout you?