and if Europe & the Soviet Union just have Hitler the keys to Europe in the late 30's the world would of been a happy place & noone would of gotten hurt. What's a few million Jew's compared to the comfort of the rest of the world

(If I am any more sarcastic it would be printed on the moon)

Thank you Friar.

This is way to OT for me to get into with the other two liberals. I'd rather use Vegas and stay off politics.

Thanks, Friar, for saving me from having to respond. Some people don't learn from history, or worse yet, learn the wrong lessons.

Why on earth is this a liberal concept?

This has nothing whatsoever to do with a liberal vs. conservative POV, other than that conservatism would suggest that waste should be eliminated, not expanded.

If Bill Clinton had attacked Iraq, the Republicans would have been all over him, and for sure demanding his immediate impeachment upon finding out that it was started based on false information.

And Hitler??? Hitler was a real threat to his neighbors, while Saddam couldn't even pee on a border fence after the first Gulf War and a decade of sanctions.

GAO estimates that U.S. taxpayers will spend $600 billion to get rid of Saddam, assuming only that everything goes according to plan from now on. Which is a bold assumption, indeed.

Saddam was a despot to his people, but he knew better than to give the U.S. a reason for attack. As a sociopath, he was 100% effective at keeping terrorists out of his country, in order not to threaten his own position.

So far out of the assault on Iraq, I suspect more Iraqis have been killed than were killed by Saddam over the last two decades.

On top of that, CIA now says Iraq has become an international training center for terrorists from all over the globe, with the trainees, according to the CIA, receiving better terror training than what Afghanistan offered 20+ years ago.

So we are now facing more terrorists, well trained to attack us here in the U.S., than before.

On top of that, we are blowing $600B that could have been better spent on real homeland security, and perhaps a contribution towards a real conservative balanced budget.

I know a lot of wacky liberals and I also know a lot of wacky conservatives (neocons) who in my mind don't have conservative values at all.

Better security shouldn't be a partisan issue, and I see some signs that the worst goofiness is fading.

The TIME article is a good sign, I think there will be many more this year and next year as our elected representatives on BOTH sides of the aisle are focusing on surviving the wrath of the people in next year's election.

They will simply refuse to listen to commands from the central politburo anymore, as their own election survival takes priority. Democracy at work...

What does this have to do with editing?

Nothing--liberals shmiberals----this has nothing to do with anything but gross incomptency---keep it simple. Anyhow, back to editing.

You liberals just don't get it, never have and probably never will. Lets not forget who lost the election.

"Lets not forget who lost the election."

Lets not forget who stole the election before that either.

Furthermore, its the entire country's fault. As long as we have two main parties, people will continue to vote the party line instead of voting for the BEST candidate. The cons have the majority in just about every decision and with one, possibly two extreme cons appointed to the Supreme Court, our country will continue to be lead by the religious right and they will continue to make decisions based on how they think we should live and what we shoul think.

Politics is no place for religion and it policy should not be based on faith instead laws that contribute to a better quality of life for everyone.

I'm still waiting for the sparks to fly in oil rich Venezuela, allready I'm seeing the propaganda here and there. Those nasty Venezuelans how dare they threaten us with acts of terrorism, turn commie, team up with Cuba, or any other inventive reasons.

Way off topic. Rather like the "media responsibility" thread of a couple of weeks ago. But that one ran along as a mature and thoughtful discussion. But here we have people throwing derogatory names at each other as a substitute for thinking and defence against analysis. After all, why should anybody even consider that a different approach might have had a better outcome.

Isn't editing all about trying to get the best out of the material available? Any good editor is interested in how somebody else might have done it differently.

Oil was the real reason for US presense in the Middle East. Saudia Arabia is running out of oil. Why? Their oil is now mixed with water which means that they are near the bottom. Oil right now is the "heartbeat" of humanity and without it we are back into the 1860's.
India will start sucking up more oil for their economy rivaling China which means more consumption than ever. The oil supply is rapidly being depleted with no end in sight. The hydrogen car is a catch 22 in the fact that if all cars were powered by hydrogen in the USA the amount of polution from manufacturing hydrogen from coal or natural gas would exceed what was produced by the internal combustion engines of all the vehicles. Fusion reactors are a dream right now because they haven't figured out how to hold a 30 million degree plasma in the magnetic containment field. Batteries are a dead issue. The government should be aggressively damming up every river in the US to provide electricity. Buy a horse, you don't have to oil it.

JJK

Buy a horse, you don't have to oil it.

I like that idea!!! Best advice I heard in ages!

I've got two for sale...anyone need a quarter/Appy mix or a Doc Bar quarter? both are geldings. Both eat about 3 ton a year. Both have great feet and teeth, both papered. Neither pampered.

You'll need a big oil-burning truck and trailer to move them very far.

Some people make the erroneous assumption that Sadaam Hussein and Adolph Hitler are analogous. Some people also make the erroneous assumption that history repeats itself. History doesn't repeat itself, each new period has a strange mixture of variables that can only assure you that something totally unexpected will occur.

We are working on a project about the run up to the war in Iraq---I was pro-war--now i think that this "adventure" is one of the worst moments in American history. More to come when we finish it.

Funny idea that, does anyone know just how bad the pollution was in places like London when it ran on horses?

Can I just ask one question of someone from the US, I've always had a bit of a problem with how you guys use English and I'm really confused over the use of the word "conservative". I thought that meant to maintain the status quo but wasn't Saddam Hussain the status quo, didn't he help the US by keeping a lid on things in Iraq and the oil flowing?
Wouldn't a conservative approach have been just to keep the old despot in line, maybe a good slap on the wrists over Kuwait and then give him a few more palaces and a billion in military aid?
I'm mean thumbing through my dictionary what Bush did goes way beyond liberal, radical is about the closest I can find, throwing out your old ally and liberating the people, sounds more like something out of The Little Red book.
Bob.

Farss:

What you're describing as "conservative" is basically old-school American conservativism, now known as "paleo-cons" in D.C. Beltway-Speak. Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney (the real brains behind the Iraq War) are what are known as "neo-cons." They are a very different breed, much more concerned with furthering American influence in the world (some would say "Empire building") than the paleo-cons ever were..

For thumbnail sketches of the different wings of American political thought, check out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservativism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoconservatism_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_right
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivism_in_the_United_States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism

The military is looking for a few good men and women.

Jon

Confusion is understandable.

What we have running this administration is not conservative (as in Barry Goldwater) but rather Neo-Conservative, neocons for short. They are characterized by a singular ideological foreign policy focus on Iran-Iraq-Syria with a Wilsonian vision to remake the mid-east into their vision. Join them with the uber nationalists, big oil men, and yet another president from Texas - and watch out, the perfect political storm.

Seems like we're two for two on these splendid little wars. For a bit of education, watch McNamara's mea culpa, "Fog of War"

The military is looking for a few good men and women.

That's because some of the top good ones were fired.

After General Shinseki said it would take 300,000-400,000 troops to maintain the peace after a successful win, he was booted. Of course he was right, and he knew that from studying military history.

I remember as a greenhorn in military bootcamp being told about the incredible efficiency of civilian insurgency. At the age of 20, I couldn't believe that a bunch of scattered civilians could create enough havoc to make governing a country impossible, but that was only the first of my many youthful misconceptions to get totally whacked.

A military boondoggle like the current one in Iraq hasn't been seen since the British tried to keep the peace in Mesopotamia.

Quick, what's the current name for the country then called Mesopotamia?

If you answered Iraq, you get 10 points.

I loved the "paleo-con" name, and I see signs in Congress and the Senate that the paleos are rising again. They were temporarily subdued by crafty neos, reality-removed intellectuals without an intellect imho, but now it's Revenge of the Sith time.

It's not the first time new people thought they could disregard history....

does anyone know just how bad the pollution was in places like London when it ran on horses?

Yes. 18 tons of good high quality fertilizer per day.

The good news is that it was probably all recycled on the fields.

Wow,
"neo-cons" almost sounds like an oxymoron to me, sort of like "radical-conservative". I guess we have a similar split down here between the 'liberals" and the "Liberals" and in a bizare twist it was a 'left wing' government that deregulated banking and foreign exchange and torn down a lot of the tarrif protection.
Seriously I do think this is the biggest mess the US has gotten itself into ever. I'm not saying the mess is entirely of the US making either just that the middle east is a mess period and history and wisdom would seem to say it's a good one to keep well away from. At the same time I'm well aware of the old saying that bad things happen when good men do nothing but I'm hard pressed to see no matter how good the intentions anything good was going to happen.
Pretty well everyone I know down here thinks Bush did the wrong thing but when I ask them "so what was the right thing to do" no one seems to have any better ideas either, and leaving Iraq to go on suffering made no sense either.
Not that we're in any position to talk, I seem to recall it was our own Richard Butler who was only too happy to validate the WMD argument when the US inspectors were saying there wasn't any. And the spin that was put on that? Well you see the US wanted the sanctions lifted so the oil could flow and didn't care about what Saddam was doing to the Iraqi people. So they did the opposite and still it was the wrong thing.
And what does any of this have to do with editing?
Well I'd say about everything as Serena said, chose one clip from Iraq for the six o'clock news and it can tell exactly the opposite story to another one. Make a 90 minute doco about the real situation and whose got the time to watch it.
Bob.

<<It's not the first time new people thought they could disregard history....>>
Or disregard common sense.

Jon