... has little or nothing to do with my opinions, which I am quite capable of formulating without resort to propaganda of any political persuasion.

>> You've bought into the Michael Moore world view my friend.
>> There are direct ties between Saddam and Al Qaeda ...

And you've bought into the Dick Cheney world view , which isn't any more real than Moore's.

The "view" into which I have "bought", however, is not that of Michael Moore, but that of the 9-11 Commission (the report of which I am currently reading and which finds no such ties). And that of the American intelligence community (which also finds no such ties, Cheney's rants notwithstanding). And the American military community (the leadership of which overwhelming does not believe that there is any significant connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda).

>> ... and Saddam himself was planning terrorist attacks on America.

Perhaps, in his wildest dreams. He was, however, in no position to execute any of them.

>> His sons were worse than he is.

Yep, no doubt about that. Am I glad they're dead. Yep, no doubt about that, either. I said before the invasion of Iraq (here on the ChipBoard) and have said several times since that I would have had no problem with a surgical military strike designed to take out Saddam and his sons. If it was truly in our national interest to remove the Hussein regime, I still believe that would have been the best plan of action for doing so.

>> Had we had the foresight to take similar action in Germany in the 1930's,
>> many millions of people might have been spared the torture and death
>> imposed on this planet by Hitler.

Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing? But, there is a significant difference in circumstances. Hitler had the military and strategic capability of carrying out his plans. Saddam Hussein and Iraq were going nowhere and doing nothing outside their own borders. Even another invasion of a neighboring country would have brought swift and complete defeat, just as it did in the Gulf War.

Oddly, rather than Michael Moore, I find myself in agreement with none other than Patrick Buchanan! I assume you wouldn't call him a liberal. See this article:

http://www.amconmag.com/03_24_03/cover.html

It's a piece he wrote for The American Conservative magazine in which he expresses many of the same views I have expressed here and to which you have taken exception.

Read it and tell me what you think. ----- jim o\-S