I'm not trying to take ones word over the other, (although clearly Wolf and I are much more on the same page politically); I'm just trying to understand better. Is Wolfs article not valid because it comes from Wolf? I could ask the same of your article because it comes from you. I think I understand what I understand up to a point; but also clearly I recognize there are things I don't know. I also recognize that it is hard for me to understand certain peoples perpspective, (politically, values wise, etc...).

As far as war goes, then most wars in history are illegal. As far as us attacking Iraq; after the first Guld War there was a cease fire put in place. There were also numerous U.N. resolutions that were put in place; of which Saddam pretty much gave the finger to all of them. Personally, I'm not using what I'm about to say as an excuse; but if you want to get legal; when there is a cease fire in place and one side is shooting surface to air missiles at the other side, pretty much day in and day out, over months and years; some people might call that a provocation.

Personally, I questioned whether we should have invaded Iraq or not. Clearly something needed to be done; this shooting missiles at us every day had to end one way or the other. My two cents is we should have unloaded some serious bomb tonnage on his country instead of invading; specifically we should have taken out all Republican Guard units; and I think we should have targeted Saddam and his sons for assisination. Yes, I know it's illegal by our own laws to target heads of state for assisination; but I think it's a stupid law. I think if you look back in history; if we had assisianted certain heads of state, many wars may have been prevented, and many millions of lives may have been saved.

As far as backing certain bad people in our history. During the time of the Cold War it was much safer for all involved for us and the USSR to use proxy states in our ideological battle against each other. In so doing this, we partnered with a lot of bad people. I'm not going to defend that in and of itself. In hindsight I think we should have let a lot of those countries sink or swim on their own. In fact, I feel that way now. There are countries that we are allied to or friends with that just aren't worth our time, effort, and/or financial resources.

- 67GTO