Norm-

Aah, so now you want to get into the root issue, not the more superfluous issue of whether American protetsters should be locked up! That one's a bit tougher -- because I lean further to your side on that. However, I'm not convinced that American action is acceptable. I'll gladly have that debate with you, but keep in mind that I pretty much lean about 70/30 against action based on what I'm about to say -- and I definitely see both sides.

No, I don't believe we should be invading Iraq because I've yet to hear what the criteria is under which it is justified.

Is it because they may have weapons of mass destruction? Or because they're concealing them? Well Israel built and concealed nukes for decades, and we obviously have no plans to invade them. OK, they're our ally, but what would me have done if the Soviets invaded them to disarm them when their program was getting started. Would we have approved? And we let South Africa do the same thing at the same time. And they were a racist and oppressive regime. It seems to me progress there came not from a U.S. invasion -- but from other types of pressure. Or more to the point, and the present, why not invade N Korea as well?

Is it because the regime is repressive? Well actually Saddam is a lot more liberal than many arab regimes in the area. For example, Iraqi women have more freedom than Saudi women. But we're not invading Saudi Arabia.

Is it because of human rights violations? Come on, if that were the case there'd be plenty of nations that should be invaded right now. I've heard speeches from Tibetan monks who lost their teeth after repeatedly having electric cattle prods shoved in their mouths by occupying Chinese soldiers. ANd yet we're cozying up to China. As a matter of fact, much of the world sees America as a major human rights violator because of our use of the death penalty. Would they then have a right (morally of course -- as I know we could defeat pretty much whoever) to invade us?

Is it because he defies U.N. resolutions? Well let's forget how fickle UN resolutions are (take a look at some of the anti-Israel resolutions passed during the cold war), and just concentrate on the fact that if we're going to use the UN as an excuse, we should have their support before we consider military action.

In other words, I'd like someone to present me with a criteria that this (or any) administration will adopt across the board. Sure you have to be practical. If we say it's because of human rights, and we invade based on that, I'm not saying we should invade China -- that would be suicide. But don't cozy up to China, ease trade regs on them, and then invade Iraq. Otherwise, I'm forced to conclude that the U.S. government is lying about human rights concerns. AFter all, we've supported Ferdinand Marcos, Noriega, THe Shah, and a load of other human rights violators when it suited us. Perhaps the worst human rights violator we supported was Saddam. Then we use human rights as an excuse to remove people from power when we decide they're not useful.

So if none of those criteria hold up based on other U.S. inaction in similar circumstances, I have to ask why we really want to invade.

Maybe we're invading because we've failed to get Osama, and the government wants to give us a victory to wave our flags and cheer over. Or maybe there's something to the fact that we only want to fight Iraq when oilmen are in the White House. How rich are Texas oilmen getting by price gouging us at the pumps over simply the THREAT of this war? Maybe Bush wants to win won for his dad.

Like I said, show me an evenly applied criteria for when we get involved, and I may support it. Then again, I'd still ask practical questions like what we're going to do with Iraq when we kick Saddam out. I'd also still worry about stirring up more anti-AMerican hatred that will cause more 9/11s. But for now, I don't even need to get to those questions because I can't even see what our reasons are.