If you mean Saddam supporting/funding Syria and Hamas, then alright that's a fair point, but can we both agree that the Saddam/Al Qaeda story is nonsense?

He did fund terrorism. There is no question about it. As far as I am concerned terrorism is terrorism no matter what they want to name themselves or what the name of the terrorist organization is. So tell me something - can you say for certain that he did NOT fund ANY organizations tied to Al Qaeda? And having a history of funding terrorists could you be so sure that he wouldn't have funded Al Qaeda after the attacks of 9/11? Would you have trusted him not to, especially knowing the history that he had for funding terrorists? Shit, the man and his regime were terrorists themselves.

And what exactly terrorism? That term is very easily thrown around and abused this side of a pillow, so tell me the qualifications for a terrorist is, you mind?

And no, it can't just be "Arabs wearing shrouds, yelling gibberish while blowing shit up and burning the American flag."



Which is the exact-reverse of asking, "You certain that Iraq DID fund Al Qaeda?"

And my answer to both is, NO. I'm open up to the idea, but even back in 2003 when the Dubya White House was pushing the Saddam/Al Qaeda supposed connection, polled Americans were not really buying all those rumors and speculations as "evidence.

Also, I explained earlier the logic against the Hussein/Al Qaeda alliance concept in the first place. Not saying it was impossible, but give me something to hook into, to wing with, to actually believe the possibility seriously of such a hypothesis.



Yes they were, but to quote conservative Pat Buchanan, who's now person-non-grata with the NeoCons: "What was Saddam gonna do with those WMDs? Attacking NATO-ally Turkey or top-regional-ally Israel or the other American-friendly Gulf States would have amounted to stepping on Superman's cape, and Saddam knew this."

DC, I fear you fall at times into the same trip that got us fucked in Vietnam, the "Monolithic Theory."

That is, that all these enemies world-wide belong on the same side, when in fact, not really.

It's a fact that Stalin gave his blessing to North Korea invading South Korea in 1950, and afterwards the American government thought that every other communist-affiliated regime was a transparent hand of Moscow, and thus the ole "Domino Theory."

Yeah North Vietnam were communist, as was China, but that didn't mean necessarily that they were allies to Moscow. Oh sure you can bring up how they got aid/weapons from the Soviets and Chinese, and I can bring up Afghanistan with the Mujahadeen: We didn't support that group in the 1980s because we agreed with their ideology or necessarily their cause, but because the Russians were there, and those Afghans were willing to blow them up for us. You know, Convenience.

As the Nixon White House realized and exploited, North Vietnam was more a bitch of China than it was of the USSR, and China itself by that time was no longer an ally of Moscow, wanted to chart its own foreign policy to address its needs. Thus Kissinger/Nixon played off China/USSR off each other, and got us detente, the ABM Treaty, the Paris Peace Accords, and so on.

Likewise in the 1980s, our government nearly pulled another Vietnam down in El Salvador. Thankfully we didn't escalate our involvement, because those commie hick-guerillas down there were more CUBAN-affiliated than SOVIET-affiliated (hell, the Moscow-sponsored Communist Party in El Salvador was reportedly the smallest group of the socialist parties within that nation, and rather irrelevant.)

My point is DC, don't fall into that Monolithic mindset with today. Yeah North Korea are a bunch of dicks in trying to demand respect with their nukes, and Iran has unfortunately grown into a regional super-power of considerable more influence and impact than say before March 2003, who apparently also want their own nukes, and Iraq supposedly wanted nukes too (though as Saddam reportedly told his American interrogators, all that was mostly a bluff to solidify his regime's power).

Look at all this with well a Nixon mindset, and not a Containment Theory/Reaganite approach here, and see how its not GI JOE vs COBRA here, one side against the other, but everyone for themselves, and how you can negotiate or pilot around that, or if we must, hammer those fuckers out.

As I've said over and over, what was the geopolitical national self-defensive advantage to Iraq? What's the difference between invading in say 2000 instead of 2003, or 2002 or 2001 or 1999 or 1998 or whatever the fuck?

1998, 1999 & 2000? - President Clinton.

2001 - 2003? President Bush.





No where did I ever say that "terrorism" is defined as those from the Arab world who wear shrouds. Those are your words, not mine.

And yes, I do agree with you that the terms terrorist and terrorism are used very loosely these days. But you and I both know what we're talking about here without having to get into definitions and qualifications. Besides, as you being someone who is smart enough to know of all the different supreme court cases in the history of our country, then I think that you're defintitely smart enough to know what the qualifications for a terrorist is.

Oh sorry, I thought we were talking about the same region of the world, or am I mistaken? I don't think we've gotten into anything about current Asian or European or Latin American terrorism so far today...



Do you?



Errrr, dude, I only named like 5 cases, and trust me...in case you don't know it...there were a lot more than that decided by the SC. I feel like that Hicks stand-up act where I'm carrying a book into a bar, and some redneck locals come up and say "Boys, looks like we got ourselves a reader here!"

And you dodged my question, as I expected. Why?

Because I myself don't know what exactly is the difference between "terrorists" and "freedom fighters", except that one is against us, and the other is on our side.

There was an awesome line from the otherwise mediocre 007 movie DIE ANOTHER DAY:

CUBAN""Who you call terrorist may be a freedom fighter to others."
BOND:"Zao doesn't care about other people's freedom."

No. I have absolutely no idea what terrorsim is. I have absolutely no idea what a terrorist is. I've never seen or been subject to any acts of terorrism first hand.

Perhaps you will be kind enough to educate me and tell me your first hand experiences regarding acts of terrorism.

Are we gonna have that WORLD TRADE CENTER movie debate again here, because I rather not.

Don't need to debate the movie! Don't need to re-watch it on the big screen! I was there, in person, both times.

DC, we both park our cars in the same garage, unlike some naive liberals and NeoCons, that there are people out there in the Middle-East who want to blow us up, and no matter how much love or democracy is given out like candy, they're still out there.

All I'm trying to say is, those 5 years we wasted in Iraq, we could have spent in eradicating Taliban for GOOD in Afghanistan, and then fight in other theatres of the War on Terror like Somalia or Sudan or Pakistan or whatever. Instead, we got our eye off the ball, and let those fuckers escape into the mountains, reform, and strike back.