blake wrote:

> you think the war in iraq and eavesdropping on citizens (a felony, by the
> way) were *good* things, and *i'm* naive? please.

I'll address those in reverse order, since the answer to the second one is
fairly short:

1. The claim is that no wiretaps were authorized on U.S. citizens. If that's
true it would technically not be a breach of any citizens' rights. Is it
true? Doubtful, but that's how the authorizations were granted.

2. Under the terms of Iraq's surrender following the liberation of Kuwait,
Iraq was not supposed to militarily engage any reconnaissance or search
operations, nor to impede the U.N. inspectors in any way. Hussein's regime
violated the terms of its surrender EVERY SINGLE DAY, and I personally
witnessed it. Some of those violations are cited in the Wikipedia article on
Operation Southern Watch. (I was a daily participant in that operation.)
Regardless of the existence or nonexistence of WMD, that fact alone
justified the war: If you fail to abide by the provisions of your surrender,
then in essence you haven't surrendered at all, and the war should continue
until you REALLY surrender.

The biggest mistake in Iraq was in not having a viable plan for the
aftermath of the conquest. The military plan was superb, but the political
plan was shit. The State Department had utterly failed to learn the lesson
of Yugoslavia after Tito's death, and so failed to predict what should have
been obvious: In a sudden power vacuum, people start killing each other in
an effort to gain ascendancy.

I personally see no need for Iraq to continue as a unified country; I think
it ought to be partitioned along the natural ethnic/religious lines, with
one partition given to the Sunni, another to the Shia, and a third to the
Kurds. Problem is, everybody wants the Kurdish section because that's where
the most oil is and it's a fairly temperate climate.

Concern about Iran and its fanatical theocracy also drives much of our
political actions in that territory, but I personally see it as a secondary
consideration to achieving stability in the area.

Bob