3- Inspectors were pulled because Saddam said he would no longer cooperate with them which led to the bombing.

22 - Number of times Al Qaeda comes up: 667

34 - The significance of which is?

That's not everything that riled me up. Some of it, I actually find amusing, and some of it is scary because I know it's true, but those three really pissed me off...

I'm glad you posted this Norm, since it's quite funny. Though I think some of the good reasons for opposing this war are in there somewhere, I would have to agree with Vinny that there are also many things which are irrelevant to the justification for war.

I have already commented on this site that I think that this is not a war that is justifiable. But I think that it is a bad argument to say that because a previous American government acted cooperatively toward a regime, that future hostilities are morally inconsistent. This is especially true since most would agree that the earlier cooperation with Iraq was bad policy. I think one can distinguish between morally necessary wars and those that are merely justified, and a country may for its own reasons choose not to fight a juistified war at one time and then later might choose to fight a similarly justified war.

What do you object to in #3 Vinny? It's just the bare facts - Iraq did not kick the inspectors out. They removed themselves voluntarily to avoid becoming collateral damage in a bombing run - Operation Desert Fox if I remember correctly. Iraq refused to allow the inspectors back in after the bombing ended but that is not the same thing as kicking them out of Iraq as the warmongers have been claiming.

So instead of kicking them out, they let them stay and said they were not cooperating with them in any fashion. Could you explain to me the difference? I concede they weren't "kicked out" in the literal sense, but they were on notice that they served no purpose in Iraq at that point.

It's a semantic argument, really, but had Iraq not said they weren't going to cooperate any longer, they would've stayed and the inspections would have continued.

I would certainly agree that there are many arguments presented that don't stand up to any reasonable analysis. There are some good arguments against war as dende points out. Let me make it clear that I don't agree with each and every point on the list, and posted it because I found it amusing. If it generates a little discussion all the better. Vinny you are correct it is semantics, but I think those who present it as a reason should remove the ambiguity and simply say as you did that they weren't going to cooperate so the inspectors chose to leave. That is less dramatic than they kicked us out but more accurate. I seem to recall that one of the reasons they didn't let them back in was that we had announced that sanctions wouldn't be removed in any case, removing one of the reasons they had for cooperating. The significance of 34 is that it implies that all terrorism would end if their weren't muslims. It suffers from the problem all generalizations do it fails to allow for the exceptions. It is a little like saying no blacks no liquor store robberies. Generalizations like that have the tendency to encourage descrimination on the basis of race, religion, ethnic origin and for that reason are bad.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who believe #34, but it's almost presented as since Cheney was there he endorsed it. Does John Edward giving a speech at a confederate General's house mean he endorsed segregationism?

Obviously not.

Same idea...

Good point Vinny the fact that Cheney was there doesn't mean he endorses the view on the bumper sticker. Does this mean that you disagreed with the Kelly Stalinist Rant about those that demonstrated against the war on the King Birthday weekend.

While I'll be willing to bet that a lot of people do support various outer-wing interests at those rallies, it wouldn't be right to say they all feel that way. Truthfully, though, I'd be willing to wager more think that way than don't think that way.

As a group, it's one thing. But, I wouldn't say for example that if you were there, you thought a certain way. As a whole, a group goes a certain way, but as individuals, it's not the same thing.

Man I'm mangling this, but I'm having a hell of a time putting into words what my mind is thinking right now...