This man should not be allowed near nuclear weapons!

[kandrathe]

That's a bit like saying you agree with the goal of reducing the world's population, you just disagree with murdering people as a means to that end.;)

Exactly. Which can be either by action or inaction (Rwanda). And, I agree we need to reduce green house gases, but not by destroying the economies of the westernized democracies.

I like Win - Win, and Win - Win - Win scenarios. Anyway, the problem, as usual, is that people are not very good at patiently applying crafty and subtle nudges or containment over prolonged periods of time. So, the brute force technique seems to be the only way to accomplish the objective within the limited 4 to 8 year attention span of Uncle Sam. Which will likely either end up as Win - Lose, or Lose - Lose.

Here is another take on Iraq; Gulf War II was the US finally being honest and direct in attempting to accomplish a 20 year goal, albeit ironically deranged that they ended up fabricating flimsy reasons for doing it. Under Reagan, we simultaneously propped up Saddam against Iran, and traded weapons to Iran to fund the Contras. It appears our strategy was to have both sides kill each other. We then seemingly lured Iraq into a trap, or acted stupidly in allowing them to invade Kuwait. After GW I, we made a feeble attempt at having the southern Shiites and northern Kurds rise up against a semi-weakened Iraq with tragic consequences. Again, we were trying to get someone else to do the dirty deed of deposing Saddam. I made the point at the time of GW II, that if the UN, Europe, and Clinton had been harsher in holding firm to intense sanctions against Iraq, then GW II would not have been necessary. But, with the UN corruption and black marketeering going on, Saddam was regaining power and funneling it into building asymmetric and non-traditional forces. That was the growing threat, that Iraq AND Iran would both become nations who train and export terror squads throughout the world.