As far as the "prime goal of the invasion," presumably you're talking about the prime goal of George Bush with regard to the invasion. That's an important point, though, because all the reasons you give were probably key to some in supporting the invasion. But it really was a Bush thing, and if I were going to speculate on his reasoning I think he did it because that's all he's good at.
Now, I'm definately no fan of Bush. When I heard he won the election in 2000 I was sick to my stomach. And even after September 11th I didn't rally around Bush like so many others were doing. I agreed that Al Qaeda needed to be eliminated, but I didn't feel that going to war with Afghanistan was something we needed to do.
But that's when Bush really took charge of things. (Maybe it was one of his advisors, but from the public's perspective these were his actions). He didn't debate and equivicate, he made Afghanistan an offer they couldn't refuse, and when they refused it he took quick and direct action. And it's around this time that my father, who referred to Bush as "the enemy" back in 2000, mentioned to me that Iraq was going to be next.
I thought at the time there was no way it was going to happen. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and the rest of the world wasn't going to go along like they did with Afghanistan. But Bush pulled it off again, though not nearly as elegantly as he did with the Taliban (Hussein played the public relations game much better than they did). Bush managed to pull out enough reasons for a majority of the US to support him, and he managed to tread the UN waters in a way which avoided a direct resolution against war, and even falls under the previous resolutions authorizing force.
Why did he do it? Well, I think it's clear that capturing or killing Saddam Hussein was a goal of the United States at least since Gulf War I. Bush saw this as something he could accomplish both to enhance his popularity and to add to his legacy. Obviously he's not going to say this, and I don't think there's any reason to expect him to. When you ask Bush what are the reasons for going into Iraq, you're really asking him what the justifications are.
Now, do I think we're going to go into Zimbabwe? I don't know, but I don't think the United States is going to remain at peace for very long as long as Bush is the President. Bush has managed to find the only thing he's good at, war.
Or were you talking about my reasons why I support (or at least accept) the invasion? For me it's mainly a matter of Saddam being an evil dictator, and secondarily because I believe that Saddam was at least a potential threat to the US. The secondary reason is seeming less and less real, though. There's the lack of very much evidence of weapons programs (*), there's the lack of very much opposition to our invasion of Baghdad, and most recently, there's the lack of a fight from Saddam himself upon his capture (he didn't even have anyone protecting him as far as I know). And even then, I didn't so much support the invasion, so much as accept it. I can't say I support having soldiers go to Iraq and be killed. But this is something the soldiers themselves feel is necessary, and so I'm not going to oppose the war on those grounds.
Anyway, I'm not sure if I made a point or not, so I'll end by responding something you said in response to an AC in this thread: "I am merely trying to point out that the reasons given for the invasion of Iraq don't make an awful lot of sense. don't worry, I'm not one of those 'it's all about the oil' types. But I don't think the publically stated reasons are very credible." "So, you still haven't really answered my question - if the reason for invading Iraq was to liberate the people and free them from a dictator, why aren't they doing that elsewhere?"
Liberating the people was more offered up as a justification for the war than a reason for it. But even if you want to call it a reason, it was never touted as the only reason.
This one predates the recently slashdotted article about myths in open source by many years, and probably was the first one to call attention to the fact that (his own words) "you cannot just take a project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of 'open source' and make it magically work".
Well, he was right, and he was wrong. You can take a project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of "open source," and make it magically work. It just takes a long time.
Mozilla.org has managed to jettison an escape pod. In some ways it's even prospering, although it hasn't reached any of the dreams we had for it during those days of irrational exuberance.
I meant publically draw up the plans. Wasn't that how news of the possible Iraq invasion started. Sketch invasion plans being aired in public.
I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. We knew of a possible Iraq invasion ever since Iraq annexed Kuwait. The first time I heard of speculation of actually going into Baghdad and removing Saddam was around the time we went into Pakistan. Ever since that point the speculation grew rather smoothly.
You could probably get a fair amount of international support to remove Mugabe. If you throw in the sort of level of effort that went into trying to convince the UN to invade Iraq you could probably get full UN support. That means international retaliation is going to be minimal.
OK...
It's not like the feared Zimbabwe military are going to provide much in the way of retaliation. It might be reasonable to tread a little softly with North korea because they could do some serious damage on the way down, but I don't think Zimbabwe is really much threat to anyone.
OK... Still waiting for a punch line...
So, the question is, if the US really is providing worldwide peacekeeping/knock of the evil dictator services, why haven't we heard anything about Zimbabwe, because it seems like a pretty ripe target?
What do you think? Maybe that will help me understand your question. What specific things are you wondering why we're not hearing? What would you suggest we do?
By the way, I never stated that the US was "providing worldwide peacekeeping/knock of the evil dictator services."
I feel compelled to point out that not every presidential candidate was in a position to vote against the PATRIOT Act.
Well yeah, that's pretty obvious, isn't it?
That's like saying "Howard Dean: the only presidential candidate who is governor of Vermont."
No it's not. Other presidential candidates, such as GWB and Joe Lieberman, were in a position to vote against the PATRIOT Act, and yet did not.
Anyway, if you have a suggestion for a better sig promoting kucinnich.us, feel free to let me know. Or even any other sig. Until I come up with a better sig, or someone shows this one to be inaccurate, I'm keeping it.
i know of several countries where thousends and thousends of people are being 'deprived of their heads' by vicious leaders. when can i expect US to intervene?
Whenever we can do so without facing major retaliation.
and btw, the countries in question don't have oil.
i know of several countries where thousands and thousands of barrels of oil are located. when can i expect US to intervene?
Actually, he copy pasted it from someone else. The first time I read this post, I did respond to the points it made. This time I didn't. Nothing smarmy about that.
I'm all for calling a spade a spade, but at least be productive.
Pointing out that the argument was a strawman was productive.
The raised issues are being dealt with in lots of other threads. If you'd like to discuss an issue with me, go ahead and bring it up. Or would you rather I respond with a strawman of my own?
Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about?
Of course not. The WMDs are what convinced the UN to give us the authority to invade Iraq. It's not what this invasion was about. This invasion was about regime change. That's pretty obvious to anyone who's paid attention to the news.
I think this definately helps us get out of Iraq sooner. To leave while Saddam was still alive would have been extremely dangerous. We're still not at the point where we can leave, but we're one big step closer.
Even easier: the theif get some fake ID and sets up a fake company (say, a home business), and gets a real terminal. He bump-charges a few hundred people per day for a month, withdraws the money and disappears.
Too bad the merchant accounts won't let you withdraw the money for 90 days. Unless, of course, you've established credit with them, in which case they take the risk.
When 90% of your charges get charged back, you can expect not only to not be allowed to withdraw anything, but you can expect FBI agents to show up at your door.
We have a method of payment that can subtract electronic mone[y] from your account, with no input from you, and without your card ever leaving your wallet?
Sounds like credit cards. What, you don't have your credit card numbers memorized?
Obviously the intercity/interstate/etc hierarchy of fast fiber links won't be replaced by slower wireless nodes, but mesh networks plus those fewer stems would be much cheaper and more useful than having some megacorp own the local wired/wireless every step of the way.
Many communities already have their own cooperative running those local wired/wireless setups. Sure, a non-profit is going to be cheaper than a corporation, since there's no one profiting off it, but I still don't think you're going to see any type of mesh network. On a local basis, it's much cheaper to centralize.
The problem is convincing the owners of those fast fiber links to give competitive prices when you don't offer them a local monopoly to go along with it. But again wireless will come to the rescue, as microwave links can either be set up or threatened to help keep the telcos in line.
Community owned and operated, adhoc wireless mesh networking will be the future of free ubiquitous access despite some peoples early attempts to coopt it.
Nope, mesh networking (as described in your link, anyway) will never be free. Someone has to pay for those "stems reaching into the Internet," after all. The current system of semi-centralization is much more efficient than a mesh network. You run a bunch of connections to a central location, then you run a single big connection between those locations. The telephone network wasn't built this way by accident. It was built this way because it is the most efficient way to do things. Sure, wireless is cheaper than wires, but it still costs money to both set up the point to point links (I know you're not talking about broadcast links), and to send the actual data (think electricity costs).
Actually, it's paid for by the Bay Area Wireless Users Group
That doesn't make it free, it means you already pay for it with the taxes you already pay.
Also, it's not clear if they meant free as in beer, or free as in freedom. If they allow anyone to go online without registering or anything, then it's both!
This would seem to indicate that in order to get online, you have to be near one of the access points, not simply in view of the hill.
Ah, but it also says:
If you live within eight miles of San Bruno Mountain and have a place -- a rooftop often does well -- that provides a direct line of sight to the mountaintop, you can buy and build your own access point.
Slashdot Mirror
As far as the "prime goal of the invasion," presumably you're talking about the prime goal of George Bush with regard to the invasion. That's an important point, though, because all the reasons you give were probably key to some in supporting the invasion. But it really was a Bush thing, and if I were going to speculate on his reasoning I think he did it because that's all he's good at.
Now, I'm definately no fan of Bush. When I heard he won the election in 2000 I was sick to my stomach. And even after September 11th I didn't rally around Bush like so many others were doing. I agreed that Al Qaeda needed to be eliminated, but I didn't feel that going to war with Afghanistan was something we needed to do.
But that's when Bush really took charge of things. (Maybe it was one of his advisors, but from the public's perspective these were his actions). He didn't debate and equivicate, he made Afghanistan an offer they couldn't refuse, and when they refused it he took quick and direct action. And it's around this time that my father, who referred to Bush as "the enemy" back in 2000, mentioned to me that Iraq was going to be next.
I thought at the time there was no way it was going to happen. Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11, and the rest of the world wasn't going to go along like they did with Afghanistan. But Bush pulled it off again, though not nearly as elegantly as he did with the Taliban (Hussein played the public relations game much better than they did). Bush managed to pull out enough reasons for a majority of the US to support him, and he managed to tread the UN waters in a way which avoided a direct resolution against war, and even falls under the previous resolutions authorizing force.
Why did he do it? Well, I think it's clear that capturing or killing Saddam Hussein was a goal of the United States at least since Gulf War I. Bush saw this as something he could accomplish both to enhance his popularity and to add to his legacy. Obviously he's not going to say this, and I don't think there's any reason to expect him to. When you ask Bush what are the reasons for going into Iraq, you're really asking him what the justifications are.
Now, do I think we're going to go into Zimbabwe? I don't know, but I don't think the United States is going to remain at peace for very long as long as Bush is the President. Bush has managed to find the only thing he's good at, war.
Or were you talking about my reasons why I support (or at least accept) the invasion? For me it's mainly a matter of Saddam being an evil dictator, and secondarily because I believe that Saddam was at least a potential threat to the US. The secondary reason is seeming less and less real, though. There's the lack of very much evidence of weapons programs (*), there's the lack of very much opposition to our invasion of Baghdad, and most recently, there's the lack of a fight from Saddam himself upon his capture (he didn't even have anyone protecting him as far as I know). And even then, I didn't so much support the invasion, so much as accept it. I can't say I support having soldiers go to Iraq and be killed. But this is something the soldiers themselves feel is necessary, and so I'm not going to oppose the war on those grounds.
Anyway, I'm not sure if I made a point or not, so I'll end by responding something you said in response to an AC in this thread: "I am merely trying to point out that the reasons given for the invasion of Iraq don't make an awful lot of sense. don't worry, I'm not one of those 'it's all about the oil' types. But I don't think the publically stated reasons are very credible." "So, you still haven't really answered my question - if the reason for invading Iraq was to liberate the people and free them from a dictator, why aren't they doing that elsewhere?"
Liberating the people was more offered up as a justification for the war than a reason for it. But even if you want to call it a reason, it was never touted as the only reason.
(*) That part
This one predates the recently slashdotted article about myths in open source by many years, and probably was the first one to call attention to the fact that (his own words) "you cannot just take a project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of 'open source' and make it magically work".
Well, he was right, and he was wrong. You can take a project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of "open source," and make it magically work. It just takes a long time.
Mozilla.org has managed to jettison an escape pod. In some ways it's even prospering, although it hasn't reached any of the dreams we had for it during those days of irrational exuberance.
I meant publically draw up the plans. Wasn't that how news of the possible Iraq invasion started. Sketch invasion plans being aired in public.
I'm not sure exactly what you're referring to. We knew of a possible Iraq invasion ever since Iraq annexed Kuwait. The first time I heard of speculation of actually going into Baghdad and removing Saddam was around the time we went into Pakistan. Ever since that point the speculation grew rather smoothly.
You could probably get a fair amount of international support to remove Mugabe. If you throw in the sort of level of effort that went into trying to convince the UN to invade Iraq you could probably get full UN support. That means international retaliation is going to be minimal.
OK...
It's not like the feared Zimbabwe military are going to provide much in the way of retaliation. It might be reasonable to tread a little softly with North korea because they could do some serious damage on the way down, but I don't think Zimbabwe is really much threat to anyone.
OK... Still waiting for a punch line...
So, the question is, if the US really is providing worldwide peacekeeping/knock of the evil dictator services, why haven't we heard anything about Zimbabwe, because it seems like a pretty ripe target?
What do you think? Maybe that will help me understand your question. What specific things are you wondering why we're not hearing? What would you suggest we do?
By the way, I never stated that the US was "providing worldwide peacekeeping/knock of the evil dictator services."
Besides, I'm not suggesting you INVADE next week, merely that you start drawing up the invasion plans.
Well, we certainly won't have any retaliation for that, as no one is going to know about it. In fact, maybe the plans already are drawn up.
Emperor Akihito
Excellent. So we can expect to see the Zimbabwe invasion plans drawn up next week then?
I think we'd see quite a bit of retaliation if we suddenly went into Zimbabwe.
I feel compelled to point out that not every presidential candidate was in a position to vote against the PATRIOT Act.
Well yeah, that's pretty obvious, isn't it?
That's like saying "Howard Dean: the only presidential candidate who is governor of Vermont."
No it's not. Other presidential candidates, such as GWB and Joe Lieberman, were in a position to vote against the PATRIOT Act, and yet did not.
Anyway, if you have a suggestion for a better sig promoting kucinnich.us, feel free to let me know. Or even any other sig. Until I come up with a better sig, or someone shows this one to be inaccurate, I'm keeping it.
i know of several countries where thousends and thousends of people are being 'deprived of their heads' by vicious leaders. when can i expect US to intervene?
Whenever we can do so without facing major retaliation.
and btw, the countries in question don't have oil.
i know of several countries where thousands and thousands of barrels of oil are located. when can i expect US to intervene?
You were smarmy, he put in some effort.
Actually, he copy pasted it from someone else. The first time I read this post, I did respond to the points it made. This time I didn't. Nothing smarmy about that.
I'm all for calling a spade a spade, but at least be productive.
Pointing out that the argument was a strawman was productive.
What do the Japanese have that the US does not, to allow them to create a MagLev?
A monarchy. In a free capitalist society, such a waste of money could never exist.
Oh, who am I kidding. We waste billions of dollars on Amtrak.
The raised issues are being dealt with in lots of other threads. If you'd like to discuss an issue with me, go ahead and bring it up. Or would you rather I respond with a strawman of my own?
Daddy, what is a strawman argument?
Keep in mind folks that this has absolutely nothing to do with September 11.
It does though. If it wasn't for September 11th, we never would have been able to do this.
Iraqi citizens may rejoice, but there is no reason for us to do the same.
Saddam's capture will probably mean that we will be able to get out of Iraq sooner. For that, I rejoice.
Yes it would. There already is such a court, the International Criminal Court..
No. The ICC is a court of last resort. It only has juridiction when no country is able or willing to prosecute the accused.
Sorry, but weren't WMDs what this invasion was supposedly about?
Of course not. The WMDs are what convinced the UN to give us the authority to invade Iraq. It's not what this invasion was about. This invasion was about regime change. That's pretty obvious to anyone who's paid attention to the news.
I think this definately helps us get out of Iraq sooner. To leave while Saddam was still alive would have been extremely dangerous. We're still not at the point where we can leave, but we're one big step closer.
The War is illegal because it was never declared.
Simple question. What law was broken?
In a legal sence, the United States of America has only been at war with Iraq one time. 1991.
War wasn't declared then either.
I also cannot move the computer out of the room. Again, that doesn't answer the question of "is there a silent mouse?"
Sorry. Let me answer the question. Yes.
If someone were to ask how to make their garage door quieter, you wouldn't tell them to move their garage somewhere else, would you?
Depends. If it was you, yeah, I would.
Unlike some people, I don't live with mommy and daddy and must make do with the space available in my 600 sq. ft. apartment.
Touchy touchy. I don't live with mommy and daddy either, but I still have lots of room outside my bedroom.
With two people living here, that means the computer goes in the bedroom.
Fine. Deal with the mouse clicks. And take some prozac or something.
Even easier: the theif get some fake ID and sets up a fake company (say, a home business), and gets a real terminal. He bump-charges a few hundred people per day for a month, withdraws the money and disappears.
Too bad the merchant accounts won't let you withdraw the money for 90 days. Unless, of course, you've established credit with them, in which case they take the risk.
When 90% of your charges get charged back, you can expect not only to not be allowed to withdraw anything, but you can expect FBI agents to show up at your door.
If someone sniffs my credit card number off the RFID tag? $50.
Actually, that one would be $0. You're only responsible for $50 if you actually lose physical possession of your card.
We have a method of payment that can subtract electronic mone[y] from your account, with no input from you, and without your card ever leaving your wallet?
Sounds like credit cards. What, you don't have your credit card numbers memorized?
Obviously the intercity/interstate/etc hierarchy of fast fiber links won't be replaced by slower wireless nodes, but mesh networks plus those fewer stems would be much cheaper and more useful than having some megacorp own the local wired/wireless every step of the way.
Many communities already have their own cooperative running those local wired/wireless setups. Sure, a non-profit is going to be cheaper than a corporation, since there's no one profiting off it, but I still don't think you're going to see any type of mesh network. On a local basis, it's much cheaper to centralize.
The problem is convincing the owners of those fast fiber links to give competitive prices when you don't offer them a local monopoly to go along with it. But again wireless will come to the rescue, as microwave links can either be set up or threatened to help keep the telcos in line.
Community owned and operated, adhoc wireless mesh networking will be the future of free ubiquitous access despite some peoples early attempts to coopt it.
Nope, mesh networking (as described in your link, anyway) will never be free. Someone has to pay for those "stems reaching into the Internet," after all. The current system of semi-centralization is much more efficient than a mesh network. You run a bunch of connections to a central location, then you run a single big connection between those locations. The telephone network wasn't built this way by accident. It was built this way because it is the most efficient way to do things. Sure, wireless is cheaper than wires, but it still costs money to both set up the point to point links (I know you're not talking about broadcast links), and to send the actual data (think electricity costs).
This is paid for by tax dollars
Actually, it's paid for by the Bay Area Wireless Users Group
That doesn't make it free, it means you already pay for it with the taxes you already pay.
Also, it's not clear if they meant free as in beer, or free as in freedom. If they allow anyone to go online without registering or anything, then it's both!
This would seem to indicate that in order to get online, you have to be near one of the access points, not simply in view of the hill.
Ah, but it also says: