The US has most of the English-speaking world on its side; most of us don't understand the others anyway, so who cares if they hate us?

Well, my philosophy is that it's better to keep on everyone's good side. That way you avoid "situations".

Better to be popular than right?

Euro countries fully supporting war:

United Kingdom, Spain, Denmark, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Macedonia, Croatia, Portugal, Bosnia, Montenegro

Euro countries supportive but wanted 2nd resolution:

Netherlands*, Estonia, the Czech Republic**, Slovenia, Slovakia**

* = sent equipment to Turkey before NATO resolution
** = sent specialists to Kuwait to support effort

Euro countries neutral:

Ireland, Austria, Finland, Serbia, Switzerland, Norway

Euro countries against:

France, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Sweden, Greece

Who's really right in this situation, though?

Well, you can have both, I think. There are ways of getting what you want without pissing everybody off.

That list is interesting. I'd be interested in knowing how the non-European countries felt, though.

Yeah, that's a good point. No sense in agitating an already pissed off dog, though. Dammit, stop making good points! You're going to make me look bad.

I slept with a loaded gun and it's too damn snooty to call me back!

If we'd rolled into Iraq after Afghanistan, no one would have given it a second thought. But now everyone has the luxury of second, third, and fourth thoughts. Everyone knows that war is wrong, but this one is a bit fuzzy, kind of gray. There's circumstantial evidence all around, nothing to convict with. I'm mildy suprised that Germany and Russia are opposed to military action, but France is not really a surprise. I believe there is a genuine wish to not cause civillian casualties, but I don't know how successful that's going to be. The aforementioned EMP bombs and GPS smart weapons are the best bet. However at some point we're going to mistake a hospital for a military traget, and it's going to suck royally.

The US will have a reputation, not any better or worse, just different, France will not have the monoploy on oil in Iraq, and in the summer or 2004 Iraqi kids will be cruising with their homies, talkin' on their cellphones to their bizzatchi's and listening to the Dead Husseins.

I'm just waiting for something big, nebulous, and nasty on the horizon; something along the lines of "What do you get when you multiply 6x9? 42". Something that makes the universe seem cockeyed and distorted. i.e. this little problem in Iraq is just that: little.

Can we stop supporting little verminous, murderous, psychopathic leaders now? Have we learned our lesson here? God I hope we have.

I dunno about that. I remember hearing about our guided missles that could home in on and knock out a single floor in an office building, neutralizeing the target with minimum damage and loss of life. We used em in that opperation in kossavo or where ever... couple years ago... when we lost a couple of our all powerfull, unstopable stealth fighters. I don't remember exactly. We killed a huge amount of civilians there, though. Granted nothing like the old days... (see fire bombing of Dresden, Germany; WW2) but it was alot. Enough that, supposedly, the UN was going to charge us with war crimes, but 9-11 sorta disolved that. (that last bit from an ex-spook friend of mine). It just seems to me that they could have picked more military targets instead of the capital.

electronics can be amazingly useless in house to house urban warfare. so what if we fry their radar and radios, the guns will still shoot. If (big if, i know) the iraqi military decides to be tenatious and defend every building and every block, it could get really ugly.

If we neutralize their ability to use high tech weapons, they are only left with small arms. After we cut their supplies off, they will slowly surrender or die, their choice. If we really want to get nasty, we play audio tapes of Al Gore from 10 ft tall speakers all night and drive them crazy(er).

You are right though Lotek, I'm talking outta my ass here. We will win, and I am confident we won't have to massacre millions, or take heavy losses ourselves.

And another thought while I'm here. Electronics *could* be very effective in urban combat. Thermal imagry through walls might very well be beneficial in such a fight. Do we have such a thing? I don't know. I wouldn't know even if we did. I *do* know that a friend of mine works at one of the local modern production plants as a preventative maintenance tech. We were talking about a new gadget 2 years ago. With an LCD viewer, the device can "see" the temperature variance in a wide variety of materials and displays them as different colors, real time. It can even isolate interior parts. This allows the tech to verify the temp of heavy equipment bearings. What the hell does this have to do with that? Thermal imagry. The technology has advanced in the past 10 years to the point that a system *may* be able to search through buildings.

I do have table salt ready for my hat, should I need to eat it though.

and posting to the Cellar

Actually, the Supreme Court, in a surprising 8-1 vote, has issued a stay in a Texas execution.

"UNUSUAL INTERVENTION

Unusually, three former federal judges, including former FBI director William Sessions, who is from Texas, filed a brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the case.

In a one-paragraph order, the high court said the stay would remain in effect until the justices decide whether to hear one of the pending appeals filed by Banks' lawyers.

If the appeal is rejected, the stay of execution will end, the court said. If the justices decide to hear the case, it will continue until the court issues a decision.

Banks had shown that from 1975 through 1980, Bowie County prosecutors accepted 80 percent of qualified white jurors and eliminated 90 percent of blacks in felony cases. They used a code, writing "b" or "n" by the names of blacks on jury lists."


Want to guess what the "n" stood for? So a former FBI director and 8 Supreme Court Justices, including 2 of the most conversvative justices in court history all feel that something is rotten in the state of Texas. The sole dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas.

Now this is merely for a stay of execution, but this is certainly noteworthy. After all, it has been established in Texas that it sufficient that a defendant in a capital crime have counsel, but that there are no minimum standards, including a requirement that the defendant's counsel be awake during the entire trial.

Anyway, back to the war.

Misleading to the point of outright lying. For example Spain's Aznar supports the US position. However only 13% in Spain agree with him. The massive Spanish majority, many times over, oppose this war.

Best one can find for US support is Britain - only 38% supportive. Considering that two years ago, 78% of Britians was supportive of US actions, then this demonstrates how stupid this president is regarded within the entire world.

In most nations, Americans are not blamed for this American foreign policy. Most people polled blame George Jr. Only in Russia and Turkey do the people also blame Americans for this war.

A smart person would say we simply bide our time until Saddam is problem to the only countries he will ever threaten - Iraq's neighbors. However this president cannot be bothered with intelligent actions. As long as Saddam is there, then Saddam is a trophey to incompetance by George Jr's advisors who were part of the George Sr administration. Nothing was going to keep George Jr from starting this war - as was decided before George Jr was even inaugurated.

So we spend massive more money and risk many more lives unnecessary. We could have taken out Saddam as we did Milosevik. But that would require patience and intelligence. Virtually every nation in the world realizes that this American president is doing the stupid thing. So be it.

This so called coalition amounts to only three nations - Britain, Australia, and US. George Jr has even destroyed relations with America's closest friend - Canada. Never since WWII have Canadian / American relations been lower. Some NATO countries sent equipment to Turkey. Not to support the US but to defend Turkey per NATO obligations.

UT openly misleads everyone. Most of the world's population is strongly against the US - moreso against George Jr than against America.
Negative Views of U.S. Are Increasing in Europe, Poll Finds

Name countries opposed to the US attack of Afghanistan. The smoking gun existed. To justify a war, the reason must be that extreme and that obvious. Even in WWII, Germany sank 100 US merchant ships - and that still was not sufficient to declare war on Germany.

Afghanistan was clearly a justified war. Korea was a justified war. Persian Gulf was clearly justified. I mention Persion Gulf with particular emphasis. I fumed while most of us opposed that war - and now forget that fact. Again reason for war was based upon an obvious smoking gun - based totally on logic. How many forget that even George Sr would not commit until Maggie Thatcher put a backbone up his ass?

War must be justified by the smoking gun. None exists (yet) in Iraq. But that point is now moot and irrelevant. The only question remaining: will America learn, again, why war must be avoided until a smoking gun clearly exists.


It is very obvious why Germany and Russia are so opposed to this war. The Bush doctrine makes it especially obvious. Why does China keep asking, "Who's next?" Specifically listed in a paper that defines the Bush Doctrine is pre-emptive military attacks on any nation that might become a super power. Specifically listed as potential threats to a US dominant position (and therefore justified for attack) are India, Russia, and Germany. Why would Germany and Russia approve of a war based upon a new American doctrine that outrightly lists them as a possible threat to the US - and therefore the next Iraq?

In any other situation, China would abstain from any UN resolution such as the failed US resolution for war. China votes in its self interest. Normally an attack on Iraq would be of no interest to China. However because of this Bush Doctrine, a justification of attacks without smoking gun, well, even China would have vetoed that UN resolution - because China keeps asking, "Who's next?"

Publications for those who think outside of the headlines (which does not include UT) keep asking this question. PBS Frontline's "War Behind Closed Doors" could not have been more blunt. Who's next? George Jr's administration now advocates attacking any nation 1) because they 'might' be a threat and 2) without any justification of a smoking gun.

If it's a POLL, and it's in the NY Times, it has been SPUN. Very simple: just ignore any stories in the Times regarding polls.

Same reasoning put forth by Richard Nixon fanatics when the NY Times repeatedly told the truth about Viet Nam. Those same right wing 'war mongers' made same accusation about any publication that did not promote a crooked administration's lies. Those same 'war mongers' also used a 'pre-emption' argument (Domino Theory) to justify their war and to label the NY Times as pinko communist liberals. Today we konw the NY Times was one of the few news sources to tell the truth. Funny. UT makes similar accusations. When the facts are contrary to the president, then insult the publication to prove it is wrong.

In the meantime, populations in virutally every nation - including Australia - are opposed to this US war - in direct contradiction to what UT would have us believe. Even in Britian, only 38% approval which is about a 50-50 split. UT can attack the messenger all he wants. Those are realities also expressed by numerous other responsible publications. Numbers are too one sided in direct contradiction to what George Jr and UT would have us believe.

When an American closest ally - Turkey (also Israels only ally in the region) - is on the order of 90% opposed, then UT must then declare all polls invalid to justify his opinion. UT posts in error twice over - once about world opinion that is strongly against Geroge Jr, and again about polls because they are so one sided in disagreement with his opinions.

But then this is all irrelevant. We attack anyway. With US military budgets now in excess of Cold War budgets (even when compensating for inlfation), the president has discovered that he can spent all he wants - and we will approve. Budget deficiet now exceed Reagan's deficiets. So who's next now that pre-emption is the doctrine and deficient spending has no limits? Pakistan? India? N Korea? Syria? France?

The problem with those polls. They show how strongly the world opposes George Jr's war. Therefore they must be wrong.