Why on earth would anyone in the administration want to leak this sort of information, at least right now? And if it’s true, how come this piece of news hasn’t created more of a stir?

Now, I’m confused.

Go read this. I am going to bed, I feel sick after reading it. I agree with the article completely

A. The White House and its various occupants have been lying about war and death for almost two hundred years — as it/they will probably continue to do so, accepting such lies may not be an option so much as almost inevitable.

B. “Over” oral sex or under — play it as it lies…

That would be inexcusable.

Oil made no sense; oil companies hate turmoil; revenge for Poppy’s failure/attack attempt made no sense; the Al Qaeda link was beyond tenuous; the WMD have been either destroyed or moved to Syria.. The Harvard MBA had a problem — terrorism / Palestine — and like any good MBA, decided to remove the sources(s) of the problem. He did say, early on “regime change” and that it would take years. It will.

The real concern now should be that it was, in a manner of speaking, too easy. The Baathists will lay low for a few years until we’re gone and then try to reassert themselves.

A minor point is that there is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes or does not auytthorize such operations. We’ve been doing stuff like that for over two hundred years, starting with the Barbary Pirates in 1801. This one just happened to be bigger than most.

Bigger then Kosovo, which after all, was a nothing but a regime change not authorized or sanctioned by the U.N>

As a libertarian, I *would* expect you to give two hoots about the rule of law.

And if you live in a country where a constitution is the supreme law of the land, embarking on overseas military missions for reasons not authorized by said constitution shows a grave disprespect for the rule of law.

Of course we do not know if Iraq will stay liberated any more than we knew Germany or Japan would not go back to their wicked fascist ways… but setting up a highly confederal system with broad regional autonomy would go a long way to ensuring that what comes after Ba’athist Socialism is not nearly as bad… plus of course the threat of Pax Americana’s big stick. For all America’s many and variegated flaws, it is vastly preferable to Ba’athism or Islamofascism. It is an imperfect world.

And where in the U.S. Constitution does it give authorization to use U.S. force and U.S. lives (not to mention U.S. tax dollars) to liberate the people of another country?

Or should we just ignore the Constitution on this one?

And how do we know they’re going to stay “liberated?” Given Iraq’s Shiah majority, the only way we can ensure it is by effectively making Iraq the 51st state. And is making another country an effective U.S. territory really liberating it?

And yes, it this turns into Operation Perpetual Whoopass (i.e. Syria, N Korea etc)… well I am fine with that too if they can be done at an acceptable cost (clearly that is the ‘Big If’). First lets get rid of the greater evil and then start on the lesser evils closer to home.

Terrorism doesn’t worry me nearly as much as the power grab that inevitably occurs during times of percieved national crisis, which we’ve already seen plenty of evidence of.

Radley Balko, who may be my favorite anti-war blogger, has a provocative post up that I pray isn’t true. It’s