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Yeah, that makes everyone so much safer.

Iraq bait-n-switch? You need to spend less time getting third hand information and more time finding it yourself.

Here is the Iraq war resolution. Pay special attention to the whereas lines. They lay out the official reasons we went to war and to the best of my knowledge, the only one that has turned out to be untrue was the continuing WMD programs and stockpiles. Those reasons were the ones argued going into the war by Bush and Company.

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-107publ243/html/PLAW-107publ243.htm

  The problem with the WMDs was that Iraq was trying to make it appear that they had them when they didn't and purposely thwarted efforts to verify their destruction per the UN security council resolution 686 (march 2 1991) and 687 (March 3 1991) that Iraq conceded to March 5th. If you think the WMDs were made up, then ask yourself why the government would lie to get us into a war and not put WMDs in the sand somewhere to keep it's citizens trusting of it. The bottom line was that Saddam feared Iran would find it a weakness if they verified they had no WMDs so he refused to allow that to happen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/world/middleeast/03saddam.html?ref=world&_r=0

You likely would have had better results if you used the Gulf of Tonkin as your example of being played REALLY badly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin

The whole story is an outright lie - to set up a desired chain of events, where striking Syria illegally will create an incident that can be trumped up as Iranian in origin, thus justifying an attack on the actual desired target.

I don't dispute this could all be a ruse. But the orders from Iran was a so called order if the US acted not something that would cause the US to act. We already know Iran feeds terrorist organizations and we already know who those organizations are. We have been able to piece the puzzles together since the mid 1980's.

In all seriousness, and I will likely be modded down for this because it's a negative on Obama. But he is a rank amateur in office who was attempting to gloat in some glory and made a statement that he is trying to wiggle out of. He drew a red line, he made a statement trying to act like the kid in class who wants to be more special or important then they are willing to be. He is the arm chair quarterback who thinks they can play the game better then those playing but when push comes to shove, refuses to suit up and get hit. So he made a statement, he is finding all sorts of opposition on it. England wants nothing to do with us on it as well as most of Europe. Russia warns us about getting involved (they are still pissed we ignored them on Libya). Russia claims the chemicals used were not weapons grade and the delivery mechanism was not military grade. They published that report with the UN. This could very well be a defining moment that restarts the cold war.

http://www.heraldonline.com/2013/09/05/5178949/russia-says-it-has-compiled-a.html

This release equivalence of "all hell will break loose if we bomb Syria because Iran is making sure of it" is most likely an attempt to persuade congress to deny authorization. I don't think Obama had any intent of changing his calculus in the first place and either made the statement to feel powerful at the time or in the hopes that it would completely deter any usage of the chemical weapons. Now he is backed into a corner and I think he is strongly attempting to find a way out. If congress denies his use of force, he can blame them. The so called war weary citizens will be even more vocal now that it is known that we (not just our ally Israel) will be attacked by known terrorist organizations backed and funded by Iran.

On a slight tangent, sometimes a proper permit/inspection can prevent a tragedy.

That tragedy had nothing to do with a permit, and would most likely not have been averted by paying the city to OK the building of the pool.

Never waste a crisis/tragedy.

If you want a pool, you get an inspector, they ensure there's no rogue wiring or geographic problems,

On a slight tangent, sometimes a proper permit/inspection can prevent a tragedy.

mitgib: Here in South Carolina, I really think it is a status symbol to have your own church, because there are 3 on every corner.

And on the fourth corner, there is a bar with a sign out front that says "No loitering by order of the Pope."

I really wasn't joking, but I do see the humor in it all. Here is Rock Hill SC recently the City passed a no jaywalking ordinance so a local bar and grill could get a liquor license as it was across the street from a church. There are so many churches in the community is would be hard to spit without hitting one.

Chalk up losses? They have been chalking up massive gains to piracy. http://www.heraldonline.com/24hour/entertainment/m usic/news/story/1280945p-8387709c.html

Justice in America...

God Bless America...

Religious freaks and gun lovers, what open minded freedom lovin folk. Freedom as long as you agree. O we might not shoot ya... but those dixie chics damn itall ta heck... they didnt a know what dey was sayin' when dey put down Bush like dat.

What better way to spend 400billion... get a few people killed... and fund a lot of military companies republican companies. Yes. Brilliant.

Not like we could rebuild around better energy sources other than oil for 400billion. Thats a lot of hydrogen fuel stations and fuel cell research and renewable energy sources.

But nah... lets go blow it all on Iraq and killing and blowing shit up over there. We should be spending it refactoring the stupid energy system in the US.

Fuck.