> It is a tradition I'm against.

GET OVER IT. The United States is going to be the world's muscle in nation-building for at least the rest of this century. If the United States is lucky, it will augment the world's brains for those efforts as well. Fate and decency have delivered us to this position, and we can't turn away.

Amy Amy Amy... Please read or watch some Barnett. (This is an hour and a half that will completely upend your understanding of international relations.)

The short version goes like this: There is nothing in the chore of bringing the world's stragglers into modernity that the United States hasn't faced in its own history.

Kennan, of whom I know nothing, did not live to see –or feel in his bones– a world where impoverish nations could look at America, and her fat adoptees in Europe and Asia and elsewhere, with the kind of raging envy and resentment that a hungry child feels while pressing his face against the candy store window. Kennan didn't understand that an undersexed, disenfranchised Saudi rodent could take control of an airliner and wipe out your old neighborhood.

Guys, the Cold War is only fun because we know how it ends.

I think the typical Vanity Fair editor's affection for the civil rights movement is similarly tainted... In retrospect, a slam dunk. These people cannot be trusted for decency in real time.

I'm pretty sure that Japan and Germany would be very different if we had walked away at the end of WWII.

One-size-fits-all, unless it doesn't.

It is not too much to say that his analysis, greatly amplified and expanded beyond his wildest dreams, led to the wars in Korea and Vietnam; to various lesser conflicts and adventures then and since; and even to the country's ongoing entanglements in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Actually it is too much to say - US policy may have led to US involvement, but it certainly didn't cause civil wars in Korea and Vietnam.

Also the author is neglecting to recognize that the Soviet Union was quite expansive in the post war period. It was formed by absorbing smaller states by force. So Soviet expansionism wasn't some bogeyman invented by paranoid cowboy statesmen.

This 'analysis' seems like a retread of the same arguments that Soviet apologists have been making since the 50's. By which all Soviet transgressions are actually American transgressions. It's not historically accurate, but it casts the US as a villain, and that's what's important.

"Also the author is neglecting to recognize that the Soviet Union was quite expansive in the post war period. "

This. If we had pursued a policy of "political containment", the Soviet Union would be alive and well and in control of Western Europe. That's the problem with pacifism: it makes no allowances for the fact that some people are just bad.

"Actually it is too much to say - US policy may have led to US involvement, but it certainly didn't cause civil wars in Korea and Vietnam."

I disagree. US Policy was the cause. Right after Japan called MacArthur uncle, Korea, the colony of Japan at that time, pushed for independence.

The victors, US and USSR, had a choice. Give Koreans a chance to form their own government without foreign influence. Or, let's divide it in half, to ensure each half of Korea meets the best interests of US and USSR.

Guess which route US and USSR took?

The policy of US and USSR paved the road for Korean War as the North invaded the South to unify the divided Koreas.

The needless tragedy of Korean War could have been prevented had the US and USSR allowed the Koreans to form their own government without the policy of US and USSR.

The unified Korea could have been the third largest economy right now right behind US and China.

A couple thoughts:

>>I'm pretty sure that Japan and Germany would be very different if we had walked away at the end of WWII.

All you have to do is compare East Germany and West Germany before the wall came down to accept this argument.

And after one of those great "Should America have dropped the bomb (twice)" discussions a few month ago, I began informally studying the situation in depth. Japan had no intention of surrendering after even Hiroshima, expecting the Allies to negotiate a conditional surrender rather than invade a heavily defended Japan. It's no coincidence they surrendered hours after The Soviet Union declared war on Japan. The Japanese knew they were better off with American ocupiers than Soviet occupiers.

The same can be said of Germany, whom the bomb was originally intended for, but they surrendered earlier than expected.

(PS- We killed far more in conventional fire-bombing than atomic bombings, and that was months before the surrender.)

And you also have to consider the tone of the times. Our leaders had seen the rise of Hitler and the consequences, and one could not help to compare this to the rise of Stalin.

A great film to see again for everyone is "The fog of war" about Robert McNamara, who was in the center seat of the cold war.

Final PS- I think you are overly optimistic Crid in your estimation that the United States will be the muscleman for the next 100 years or so.

@Chang the division of Korea is a perfect example of accommodationism, and what results. You want to blame the US for instigating the war, though allowing Korea to be politically divided was an attempt to keep the peace - you are aware that the Soviets held North Korea at that time right?

>> The unified Korea could have been the third largest economy right now right behind US and China.

More likely it would have gone communist, under pressure from the Soviet Union and PRC and we'd now have a much larger version of NK threatening the world.

South Korea has only survived because of the evil AmeriKKKan hegemon.

No nation building?

As you can see after the "Arab Spring" festivities, returning some governments to a democracy without American influence is resulting in Sharian societies.

If the USA could establish a secular government after Hussein's removal - and yes, it was relatively secular under his rule - then a major chunk of the Middle East could be defused w/r/t the expansion of Islam, now the bane of several facets of French and British life. We couldn't say this out loud, and liars made it a power struggle in the USA.

"Fate and decency have delivered us to this position, and we can't turn away."

"The point of the war is not to win - it is the consumption of human output." - Emanual Goldstein (Orwell, in 1984). It makes a fine diversion while Rome burns, too.

"South Korea has only survived because of the evil AmeriKKKan hegemon."

Precisely.

Korea is the prime real estate in East Asia. You can invade China or Russia using Korea as a launching pad.

This is not something new. Japan has been bypassing Korea to invade China and Russia many times throughout the history.

The success of South Korea today has less to do with benevolent generosity of America. It has a lot to do with "the evil AmeriKKKan hegemon." to keep China and Russia at the bay.

I am not bitching. I am just asking you not to gloss over the facts.

Chang, you are an idiot who is not worth the effort to argue with

" The Japanese knew they were better off with American ocupiers than Soviet occupiers."

Nope. The other way around.

USSR declared war on Japan on 08/08/1945. Japanese disliked the USSR communists but hated Americans.

Therefore, they attacked Pearl Harbor instead of Siberia, which Hitler asked Japan to invade. Had Japanese accepted Hitler's advice, the communists would have been wiped out and we all be communicating with Germans right now.

Knowing that Japan will negotiate the surrender with USSR instead of USA, the US atomic bombed the Nagasaki on 08/09/1945 to speed up the Japanese surrender to US.

True story.

> It makes a fine diversion

If you'd describe the dispersal of wealth and self-determination across dozens of nations and the establishment of two generations of stability across whole continents (for the first time in hundreds of years) along with hundreds of millions of people living of all backgrounds living in tremendous happiness within the United States herself as "Rome burning", you might be trying too hard to make a point.

Nope. The other way around.

Chang, you ignorant slut.

USSR declared war on Japan on 08/08/1945. Japanese disliked the USSR communists but hated Americans.

The USSR declared war on Japan in 1945 because it was obvious the US was going to win and without participating in that victory, the USSR would have very little influence (or territory) in that region in the post-war period. Upon declaring war, the USSR immediately invaded Korea ... hence the divided Korea at war's end.

Therefore, they attacked Pearl Harbor instead of Siberia, which Hitler asked Japan to invade. Had Japanese accepted Hitler's advice, the communists would have been wiped out and we all be communicating with Germans right now.

Japan had no beef with the Soviet Union. The Americans, on the other hand, were pushing the Japanese to stop invading China and Indonesia.

Japan had already defeated Russia in 1904 in a fight over control of Manchuria and Korea. The Russians wanted Manchuria and Korea and needed a year-round warm water port for the Russian Far East Fleet (Port Arthur, Manchuria). The Japanese also wanted Manchuria and Korea.

The Japanese issued a declaration of war on February 8, 1904 and, three hours before the Russian government had received it in Moscow, launched a surprise naval attack on the Russian Far East Fleet in Port Arthur, Manchuria. The Japanese goal was to neutralize the Russian fleet.

US president, Teddy Roosevelt, earned a Nobel Prize for his efforts to mediate a peace between Japan and Russia in 1905. But his support for the tsar's refusal to pay the indemnities that the Japanese demanded convinced the Japanese that the Americans had more than a passing interest in Pacific affairs and would side against the Japanese in the future. 36 years later, that thinking would color the Japanese strategy in the Pacific expansion.

Japan would revise the sneak attack strategy in attacking the US Pacific Fleet in 1941 to neutralize it before the Japanese military undertook an invasion of the Southern Pacific region. The Japanese did issue a declaration of war prior to the Pearl Harbor attack but their embassy in Washington was unable to decode and deliver it to the US Secretary of State until several hours after the attack.

Hitler wanted Japan to attack Russia to help his own aims in that direction. However, the Russians had nothing the Japanese wanted and had taken no actions and made no statements that indicated Russia would in any way interfere with a Japanese conquest of the South-Western Pacific.

Knowing that Japan will negotiate the surrender with USSR instead of USA, the US atomic bombed the Nagasaki on 08/09/1945 to speed up the Japanese surrender to US.

The Japanese proposed negotiating a surrender to the Soviet Union in order to cut the Americans out of the talks, but the Allies had already agreed that any and all surrender talks would include all Allies.

And the Soviets were not strong enough in the Pacific then to enforce a solely Russo-Japan surrender ... and they needed the American goodwill in Europe. Promises may have been made at Yalta (where Uncle Joe finally agreed to declare war on Japan once the Germans surrendered), but the post-war map of Europe was still being drawn ... and Russian wanted Eastern Europe far more than it wanted the Korea or Manchuria.

In Europe, Zhukov did have more men, but the American manufacturing and weapon systems were superior to anything the Red Army had. The Americans finally had a heavy tank in decent numbers. The P-51 and B-29 ensured that, unlike the Luftwaffe, the USAAF could reach the relocated Russian factories in the Urals. And, unlike the Germans, the Russians didn't have a navy that could interdict weapons and munitions shipments from the US, where American factories were safe from Russian bombing.

The atomic bombs were dropped because the best-case scenario of an invasion of Japan was over 1 million casualties and the rest of the world was tired of the war.

Ya the American and the USSR split Korea down the middle. But a few years after the war. There where few US troops on ground (Russian too). America was not actively working in Korea. If the North Korean communist attack had not happen,given another year or two, the US presence would have would have been gone.

Korea as the third world power, ha, come on I love Korea, but I do not see it, maybe a team up with Japan. You want to know what helped Korea become a economic tiger - Park Chung Hee, Japanese money and whole lotta Korean people working hard and that was after floundering for about 15 - 20 years after the war.

The US should not be the world police, it should protect it's interests and to a small part economic/business interests. If the world wants it to be the security, then let it be the one to set the rule on solving it - from carpet bombing to assassination to just ignoring it till it goes away.

> You can invade China or Russia using Korea
> as a launching pad.

An interesting insight for the 17th century. No one, no one, no one finds any such utility for the place today. For the duration of humanity's stay on the globe, this will not be a problem. There's nothing anybody wants out of South Korea that South Koreans can't be paid to deliver at a competitive price.

(Y'ever meet a middle-aged woman who says she had a great ass in high school? This is kinda like that.)

"The atomic bombs were dropped because the best-case scenario of an invasion of Japan was over 1 million casualties and the rest of the world was tired of the war."

Not exactly.

The Japanese were negotiating conditional surrender with MacArthur before Hiroshima.

All MacArthur had to do was to accept the conditional surrender to avoid "over 1 million casualties".

The Japanese demand was very pathetic and reasonable. They want to ensure the safety and integrity of Emperor Hirohito.

But for the US, that was very unseasonable demand and people at Hiroshima and Nagasaki paid the price for that unreasonable demand.

Do you really think that was unreasonable demand and deserved atomic bomb attack on the civilians?

"Knowing that Japan will negotiate the surrender with USSR instead of USA, the US atomic bombed the Nagasaki on 08/09/1945 to speed up the Japanese surrender to US."

Remember, everybody, Chang is our resident Stalinist.

"You want to know what helped Korea become a economic tiger - Park Chung Hee, Japanese money and whole lotta Korean people working hard and that was after floundering for about 15 - 20 years after the war."

That is very damn good observation.

If you told this to Koreans, about at least half of them would disagree with you. Especially about Park and Japanese compensation money paid for 36 year colonial rule. But I agree with you.

I am amazed that it is usually the non Koreans, who can tell you what Korea is about.

"An interesting insight for the 17th century. No one, no one, no one finds any such utility for the place today. For the duration of humanity's stay on the globe, this will not be a problem."

Bullshit.

Why do think China, Russia and North Korea armed themselves with atomic bombs?

They did it to protect themselves from the only country, which lacked the humanity in settling the differences in the international setting.

Personally? Yes, first off losers dont get to set the terms, letting them sets a very dangerous precedent - look at Iraq, 20 YRS ago and today, and Afganistan, and Palistine

Second, unlike contemporary commanders who have to dance to the ever shifting tune of PC assholes in the public, MacAruther understood the problem of hostile populations and their religios attachments. What was it a hundered thousand or so civillians killed themselves on the promise of a better class of afterlife then they were regularly entitled to? All on the orders of the Emporer because he didnt want his subjects defecting if their area fell to american forces

So what you're saying is that joining the globalized economy from some previous posture of disconnectedness and ancient, petty, local fiefdoms was a lot of work, effort for which people want to be admired on a personal level. Right?

Good to know!

Because that might happen to other nations as they join modernity as well.

They did it to protect themselves from the only country, which lacked the humanity in settling the differences in the international setting.

Posted by: chang

Really? Germany murdered prisoners of war, plus like 17million undesirables.

Russias purges and, at times intentional, misdirection of supplies killed hundereds of thousands more.

Japan used toxic gas weapons on chineese clivilians after such weapons were internationlly banned by the league of nations

North Koreas treatment of its citizens makes the way we treated japaneese citizens in WW2 look like it was a birthday celebration for our most favorite relitives, and until recently China wasnt much better

"Yes, first off losers dont get to set the terms, letting them sets a very dangerous precedent - look at Iraq, 20 YRS ago and today, and Afganistan, and Palistine"

Agreed.

What I don't like is that a lot of people including Conan try to bullshit me that US nuked Japanese to save the lives.

That is not true. If that is what US wanted, MacArthur should have accepted the conditional surrender from Japan.

> Why do think China, Russia and North Korea armed
> themselves with atomic bombs?

Irrelevant, little feller. What are the blessing for which you think China, Japan, Botswana or Canada would invade?

> What I don't like is that a lot of people
> including Conan try to bullshit me that US
> nuked Japanese to save the lives.

They did it to end the war, which saved some lives. My mother had an uncle on Tinian that summer, he was waiting for the word to invade. Instead he came home and had two little girls... They're grandmothers now. See how that works?

Well chang, I have lived in South Korea for about 10 years.

Well half the Koreans who would disagree with me would be the younger generation who has been educated by the very liberal teachers (you thought the US was bad, try South Korea with possible North Korean links). Add in a vehement slightly irrational hatred of Japan (valid and not) and would never accept the money as helping.

Many Koreans are amazed when I comment that ParkChungHee is the most interesting Korean I have read about and if I could have met I would. Of course the man was a ruthless dictator, but a man with a goal. Just stuck around a little long.

Chang Comments - The success of South Korea today has less to do with benevolent generosity of America. It has a lot to do with "the evil AmeriKKKan hegemon." to keep China and Russia at the bay.

This I agree with. It was more Koreans sweat that helped build it up then any American largess or compassion. Through they did help a bit. America was more the one that gave the opportunity to build by sort of holding the hoards back.

The atomic bombs will be one of those things that gets argued back and forth for ever. Me I was or it. The Koreans I meet are still asking why just two bombs?

Let's ask about more recent stuff. Was it worth the time for Clinton to send people Somalia. 10 years later and it is no better. What about other places, Bosnia (fucked to spell the rest), what was the justification? More recent Afghanistan and Iraq. Yes to the first, why waste time with with setting up a government - flatten the place, revenge in its purist sense. Iraq, well where the fuck is the oil and WMD. Okay no WMD found, then make it worth the while to be there, get the oil.

The question is should US be the protector or should it become more isolationist NOW?

> make it worth the while to be there, get the oil.

We don't need it. It was never about empire. China needs it, India needs it, Europe needs it... We didn't like seeing that resource in the hands of sadistic dictator.

But it's ok for King Abdullah, right?

I don't think the US went to Iraq for any principled reasons. The mission in Iraq kept changing. The goal posts kept moving year by year. The justifications for war kept changing.

Right... We just like killin' people.

"Right... We just like killin' people."

Well, y'know, they need killin'.

And to Abersouth: The justification for the Iraq War never changed; it's the same now as it was in 2001. The whole idea was to transform Iraq into the outlier that the rest of the Middle East couldn't ignore. You can certainly argue about whether or not this was a worthwhile or proper goal, and you can argue about whether it was achieved. However, the fact remains that this was always the goal, however poorly the Bush Administration explained it. Any other explanation is someone else putting words into their mouths.

I read a piece on the lead up to pearl harbor. It made a convincing argument that much of the Japanese leadership thought the US would just back down, particularly if they delivered a strong opening punch and were extremely surprised at the US's reaction.

Another argument they put forth was that had the US played its cards correctly, Japan probably would have just let the US be. Less convincingly, they claimed that some in the US leadership acted initially to make the situation more antagonistic.

Cousin Dave, it is not the same now as it was then. Some of the reasons that were argued for invading included the following- WMD, and because Iraq was harboring terrorists that had links to Al Quaeda. WMD we learned wasn't true, links to terrorists was discredited by the CIA. So, simply by those reasons no longer being real we didnt have the same rationale for fighting there as was originally sold to the American public.

Of course then we were already committed and I remember much scrambling rhetoric to further justify spilling of blood. And we definitely laid waste.

Abersouth, WMD was merely a pretext that they had to use in order to get some sort of go-ahead from the United Nations (back when the UN's opinion was still thought to matter). The intel agencies did indeed think that WMD was present, but that assessment went well back into the Clinton Administration, and Clinton himself thought that Saddam possessed advanced chemical and biological weapons.

As for the terrorism connection, it's a popular leftist trope that Saddam had no connection to al Queda, but it's not true. Translated correspondence found in Saddam's palaces after the invasion outlined his connections to al Queda, which included funding and providing areas for training camps. I'll try to dig up some links. But in any event, that still wasn't the rationale for the invasion. The rationale was to try to initiate a radical transformation in the Middle East via the black-swan event of replacing Saddam with a democratic government. Iraq was chosen because it was (and is) a well-educated country compared to most of the Middle East.

chang, you'd better read up on Fuchida Mitsuo:

http://books.google.com/books?id=bdocZPhDPT0C&pg=PT357&lpg=PT357&dq=You+know+the+Japanese+attitude+of+that+time,+how+fanatic+they+were.+They'd+die+for+the+Emperor....+Every+man,+woman,+and+child+would+have+resisted+the+invasion+with+sticks+and+stones,+if+necessary...'&source=bl&ots=4PDnyANTx9&sig=esEp9rPO7HLV7YgjIW-b04k793g&hl=en&ei=Gt3kTpWJNMHlgge9mpSCBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CB4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=You%20know%20the%20Japanese%20attitude%20of%20that%20time%2C%20how%20fanatic%20they%20were.%20They'd%20die%20for%20the%20Emperor....%20Every%20man%2C%20woman%2C%20and%20child%20would%20have%20resisted%20the%20invasion%20with%20sticks%20and%20stones%2C%20if%20necessary...'&f=false

chang, many more Japanese died in the "regular" bombing of Japan than in the two atomic blasts. The U.S. Air Force bombed several dozen cities for weeks, yet Japan did not surrender.

>> They want to ensure the safety and integrity of Emperor Hirohito.

Somewhat true, but the Allied command offered immediately after Hiroshima to allow the monarchy to continue in a non-political form if, and this is important Chang, the Japanese armed forces accepted and unconditional surrender. The Japanese high command mistook this as a sign of American weakness and lack of desire for a ground war, so they rejected the proposal. Adios Nagasaki.

PS- The mindset of America after the death marches, executed prisoners of war, Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, Guadalcanal, etc etc was understandable. I would guess from your posts that if Japan had the bomb they would have humanely stored it away.

"WMD we learned wasn't true..."

This is bullshit, and you, along with others, should stop repeating it.

"We" learned no such thing. "We" were subjected to political pandering on both sides - careful information control, depending on the public believing the pretty faces on the evening news.

Meanwhile: Iraq had a nuclear program, which was bombed by the Israelis. Iraq USED chemical weapons on its own citizens. Iraq remains an industrialized nation, capable of the manufacture of all sorts of materials within a few hours.

You may not fit the mold, but all sorts of Americans do not recognize that WMDs are ON SALE AT HOME DEPOT, LOWE's and WALMART. The differences are quantity and usage, that's all.

Iraqis are not all peaceful date farmers dozing in the shade of their camels. Whatever your feeling about invading a sovereign nation or even raising hell in the UN about Iraq instead of other nations, you should recognize that liars from both sides manipulate the image of the Middle East to suit their argument, pounding to fit, painting to match as they go. These liars even suppressed a Chlorine gas attack in a market, because that would be impossible. What? Date farms don't use chlorine. Talk about something else.

Radwaste, with all due respect, the US said certain WMDs were in existence in Iraq as a pretext for going to war. Those WMDs were not found. Any attempt to move the goal posts to include Walmart products as WMDs is disingenuous as all hell.

I know full well Iraq historically had some nasty stuff and played up the facade that they still did.

I'm still waiting on these smoking guns that prove Iraq harbored terrorists. Of course I think such an argument is also disingenuous to a very high degree. We've known for a long time where the terrorists that attacked the WTC were from and where they were trained. I don't think it's spelled Iraq.

It's disturbing how deep-set the security state has become embedded into common notions of patriotism. I particularly notice this when talking to Tea Partiers, who call big government incompetent -- unless its agents are carrying guns, when they can do no wrong.

" I would guess from your posts that if Japan had the bomb they would have humanely stored it away."

I doubt it.

Probably Tojo himself kamikazed into New York shouting "Long Live Emperor!!!".

Past forward 65 years.

Would be writing in this blog condemning Japanese nuke attack in 1945 or praising what Japanese did by saying "you know they did it to end the war and save the lives. I think it saved many unnecessary deaths of American."

The 21st century humanity decided that nuke is not the humane way to settle the differences between two nations.

As a reasonable 21st century human reviewing 20th century events, I expect you to denounce nuke attacks regardless of the nationalities of the recipients of the bombs.

Or, you could tell me Nuking Japanese = good, Nuking Americans = bad.

The Japanese were negotiating conditional surrender with MacArthur before Hiroshima.

The Japanese were trying to dictate terms. MacArthur was having none of it.

Japan started the war by invading China in 1932 and dragged the US into it by attacking Pearl Harbor in 1941.

All MacArthur had to do was to accept the conditional surrender to avoid "over 1 million casualties".

And leave a militantly religious population enslaved to the living-god emperor's whims and under the thumb of the same samurai class that started the war?

We'd have been at war with Japan again within a lifetime ... as we were with Germany when the victors of 1918 did not take responsibility for the vanquished.

The Japanese demand was very pathetic and reasonable. They want to ensure the safety and integrity of Emperor Hirohito.

The Japanese wanted to ensure the continued divinity of the emperor. Big difference.

Do you really think that was unreasonable demand and deserved atomic bomb attack on the civilians?

Am I answering that question as a pampered civilian sixty years later? Or as a soldier awaiting orders to storm a hostile Honshu beach? Or as a commander knowing I'll be sending my men to certain death in an invasion ... unless there's another way?

chang, the atomic bombs did save lives ... American lives.

It wasn't Truman's job to save Japanese lives.

As a reasonable 21st century human reviewing 20th century events, I expect you to denounce nuke attacks regardless of the nationalities of the recipients of the bombs.

Well thats a shit test, isnt it? Hindsight is invariably 20/20. People ususally become more egalitarian as time rolls on - so damn near every decision made from more than 20yrs ago all the way back to prehistory is denounceable

But then again far more civilians would have died had we been forced into a full scale invasion.

Abersouth - way to miss the point.

WalMart sells products produced by an industrial nation for consumer use. In the USA, that production is in the hundreds of millions of tons annually. WE don't count that, because WE do NOT recognize WHAT a damned WMD really IS - and of course, WE give ourselves a pass in nearly every instance: the USA may (possess, manufacture, sell, use, pick one) (nuclear devices, electronic surveillance measures, chemicals, biologicals, all of the above), just because we're US. Now, while I do not have a problem with that so long as the Constitution is followed, but we have less and less regard for that, and people arbitrarily die now and then.

Then we have the nerve to say that others may not have or develop what we have. WTF?

You bought the LIE that there are no WMDs in Iraq, because someone other than you, and with a specific goal in mind, defined "WMD" so as to exclude the very real chemical production capability in Iraq, as well as ignore what had gone before.

Do not back liars - and you have been lied to.

You, personally, can buy Russian ammunition and have it shipped to your own house overnight. Do not shut your eyes and think that a government can't throw millions of dollars and still NOT have access to what it wants.

This is not the first time American politics has interfered with the truth, and not the first time that a hundred talking heads yelling "Smoke!" has been confused for evidence of a fire.

Rad, I guess I did miss your point. I know the government lied in selling the war NOW. I didn't know back THEN.

I voted for Bush the younger on his first term. Not his second, and I'll never vote for his ilk again.

"Not his second, and I'll never vote for his ilk again. "

As you know, you have some mighty slim pickin's!