[Tobiasly]

There aren't two threads of discussion here; there is one thread with different facets and I was commenting on the one you were carrying on with UT. You seemed distressed that no one was giving you props for pointing out the truth; I was saying that the truth you were pointing out is irrelevant. UT's point is that we didn't sell biological weapons; we sold their precursors. My point is that regardless of what we provided Iraq in the past, the fact that we provided it (as opposed to someone else providing it) is irrelevant today.

"Shouting" wasn't my intention; I was trying to make sure that what I felt was the most important part of my post didn't go unnoticed as it seemed to previously.

You shouldn't put that nonsense into quotation marks, since that seems to attribute it to me.

I never intended to attribute it to you. It was a hypothetical paraphrasing of rationale I had heard in the past, and was trying to answer what I thought someone might reply to my post with beforehand.

Once again, why are you deliberately misquoting me and misstating my intent? You are committing fairly serious oversimplifications of poli-sci issues that are too complicated to be solved by 'let's bomb this and everything will be ok'.

I never said "let's bomb this and everything will be OK." You shouldn't put that nonsense into quotation marks, since that seems to attribute it to me. Why are you deliberately misquoting me and misstating my intent? Oh, wait a minute.. you were using it as a figurative example ("humorously paraphrasing") to make a point, since you never actually claimed that I uttered those words. I guess that's a pretty common thing to do in typed online conversations, huh?

Regarding the points on why the US shouldn't simply attack Iraq and then do nothing, they've been outlined in an earlier posting. I suspect that our positions are a lot closer than you would think, but it's difficult to see through all of the empty catchphrases, regurgitated PR spin, sound and fury.

I never said that the US shouldn't attack Iraq and then do nothing. And please give me examples of any "empty catchphrases", "regurgitated PR spin", or "sound and fury" that I've used here. I'll settle for the first two, since I can see why you thought I was shouting earlier.

If you really, really can't see what's going on, let's have a Republican campaigning advisor spell it out for you.

Likewise, I never disputed that there is a heaping helping of politics thrown into all of this. The fact that an issue has been politicized in and of itself is pointless and has nothing to do with the issue itself. Issues like this will always be politicized, so as long as people can accept that and see through it, there isn't a problem.

Yes, a lot of people (probably most people) are taken in by most of the PR and spin that comes from any administration, but to assume that I've bought into it simply because I agree with them is an oversimplification itself. I wouldn't even bother posting here or anywhere if I weren't trying to discover all sides to an issue so that I could make an informed decision.