I doubt you’ll read this since the blog has moved on, but ties to regional terrorists (such as paying the families of suicide bombers in Israel) is different than our War on Terrorism. Our War on Terrorism is against an organization that projected those methods against us. Al-Qaeda’s goal was not the destruction of Israel. Al-Qaeda laid its goals both prior to and after 9/11 and those goals dealt with getting the U.S. out of the Middle East. Now he had no legitimate reason to insist on that, since Saudi Arabia asked us to be there, but that is his grip.

There are some countries in the region that support al-Qaeda or its affiliates (Iran, Pakistan did before 9/11, Saudi Arabia, UAE and others), but Iraq was not one of them. Iraq is a secular, somewhat communistic state. Saddam was Bathist, who received funds from the USSR. He went to the USSR in the 1970’s after a high-profile murder in Iraq. His state policies were communistic. And as you know (since conservatives love to point out) communists are atheists.

Along those lines, Osama Bin Laden, after the USSR-Afghanistan war, came back to Saudi Arabia. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, Osama Bin Laden went to the King of Saudi Arabia and requested to fight a war against Iraq. After being rebuffed by the King, Osama formed al-Qaeda to eliminate all infidels from the Middle East. Osama has called Islamic infidels worse than other infidels, because they should know better. There is no love lost between these two.

These two men (Osame and Saddam) have/had vastly different goals for their region. Osama wanted to establish a new Caliphate. Saddam wanted to establish a new Arabian empire, like the USSR, with him as the leader. These two goals are very different and thus more in conflict than our goals and their goals in the region. This why I said what I said and why it is not a conflict.

BTW, that thing quoted is from a song, not a TV show.

I’m suddenly reminded of an old (BW)TV show…..Will the real Noah KLein, please stand up?

After watching the ABC "Nightline" report on Wednesday that gave a sneak preview of some the Saddam tapes being featured by the bi-partisan Intelligence Summit over the weekend, a few things were clear: ABC, working from what some experts…

No matter how badly the Bush administration is handling its various situations, the American left not only doesn’t understand what is going on, but because of that, they have no clue as to what they should or could be doing differently. In fact, …

“Saddam, in short, had a record of supporting terrorism. Brazil may have been friendly with Germany but could offer her little in the way of support.”

First, I disagree that Brazil could offered less support to the Nazis than Saddam offered to terrorists, but getting in to comparative discussion would us off-track. Furthermore, I won’t disagree that Saddam had ties to terrorism (the man tried to kill a president), yet I will disagree that these ties amounted to a serious threat to the United States. Saddam was a bad guy and I will not shed a tear when the Iraqis kill him, but he was contained threat. The one thing that we have learned from after the war is that Saddam’s threats to his neighbors or to project that further were exaggerated.

“Are you saying that Saddam was an effective counterweight to Iranian theocracy and therefore was a plus in the region? I hope not. To have one’s policy hinge on a homicidal madman who could have been overthrown at the drop of a hat would not have been very smart.”

I would never say that Saddam was plus in the region and strong democratic Iraq is very much preferred to a weak autocratic Iraq, yet this was the same policy used by Reagan to combat two potential threats. A warring Iran and Iraq is a tragedy in human terms, but a strategic benefit in geopolitical terms.

Ah, there’s the smell of horsehide in the air. A few notable stories and posts at the end of a busy Sunday. Label this one ‘hope springs eternal’, though the wait is a lot shorter than it once was. The

The word refers to a technique, usually a bomb, not an ideology. A bombing is an anarchic gesture calling for police and medical services. It becomes a political weapon only if publicised and answered with hysteria.

That is the argument that John Kerry made unsuccessfully, that terrorism is largely a law enforcement issue. While that may be a workable theory in the absence of nuclear/chemical/biological weapons (though I disagree), and particularly in the absence of attacks on our home soil, with both of those possibilities in existence it becomes unworkable. For then you have decided that a large number of American life may be lost, and that would be acceptable.