redshift1100

Newton did just that, same goes for Decartes. A Universe so elegant must be the work of a higher power right? One thing that we should know is that our notion of a God largely doesn't fit the mold. Even worse, when God and science made it's marriage in the 16th and 17th century, it took modern religion in a bad direction. As Science started to have the "answers", some religious elements decided to counter this rise in knowledge with a fundamentalist view. The Bible become ridged and real, something largely not intended of religion. Now we have people making ridiculus claims in order to support things such as the Genisis creation myths, making them cannon fodder for the Richard Dawkins of the world. Hence, God and Science and live together but are best left apart.

Sure, and I agree with you, in fact, one of my heros Chis Hitchens, agrees with you; we were previously isolating and financially strangling the population to help facilitate change. It's an old tactic, see DPRK, Cuba, etc. or example. Also, the success of this war seems obvious with 20/20 but there was a strong possibility for making things much worse. And still is. However, I think you are putting only the positive spin on this and in doing so falsely diminishing the tremendous cost this was to millions of Iraqis, thousands of Americans, and the billions of dollars squandered; all for a policy which was dictacted, orchestrated, and executed poorly by the previous US administration.

Sure, an argument could be made that this has been the best option for the Iraqi people, to unilaterally remove Saddam from power. However, that defense for the war was ancillary to the unilateral and concerted effort to claim Saddam was an immediate military threat, that the US has to shoulder the lions share of the burden to handle this immediate threat. Well I shouldn't say the US shouldered most of it, this was a tremendous toll on the Iraqi people, and could have gone either way. I do not believe that the surge was what caused the sea change but petraeus did some brillant things. I'm not saying it was total dumb luck but this really could have gone either way, right before the surge everyone was scratching their heads, at least from what I could tell, and I was pretty heavily following the details of the war. There was a HUGE concern that if we knocked down the Sadr's of Iraq, we would be essentially creating power vacums and chaos The backlash for the war was high, Al Qaeda in Iraq could have dug in deeper, we had very hostile forces in every direction and little support from the rest of the world. Hence, this was not the best option for overthrowing Saddam, nor was it for altristic reasons. Think of the pile of countries we could help out, why Iraq? Why at such a cost to American foriegn policy, post 9-11 good will, and so forth. Iraq sucked all of the oxygen out of the room and relegated US foreign policy to just that. So many things were left on the cutting room floor, and other nations even exploited the situation. Plus, we looked like the liars which we were. It green-lighted loose terrorist groups to strike out whereever possible, perhaps not in the US but they picked closer and or softer targets. This was not a good use of American power, or global good will, to shoulder such a huge undertaking alone was due to a gross underestimation and hubris by the previous Administration.

Thank you for responding so succinctly, it was a pleasure reading it and helped me understand things a bit better. Thx.

Hi, Say the moon doubled in size magically, what would keep it from becoming part of the Earth again? I guess I'm asking what would have to happen to stabilze the orbit of the two objects if one just suddenly became larger ? Would one have to spin faster? or conversely move away from the other ?

Some of us did but it wouldn't have mattered, you are speaking with 20/20 hindsight, the US population was "on board". Period. Nothing would have turned over the information machine at that time. The biggest opposion was hippie cliche', basically "wars are bad in general", that wasn't going to provide logical insight on why to stop it. Regarding your oil point, yes it was obnxious to hear people say it was JUST about oil, especially considering that the neo-cons were grumbling in the Senate about overthrowing Saddam in the late 90s. So no, oil wasn't the ONLY factor but it really greased the wheels because it meant that (1) they could pay for their own recovery (2) the US would gain a pro-west regime perhaps like Kuwait (3) It could help stablize the region (4) draw a line against the Shia cresent (5) encourage other mid-east nations to overthrow their dictatorships, (6) Oil for profit men in the White House, etc .etc.. Also, to illustrate their zealous feelings of "finishing" desert storm, they exploited 9/11, they expected this to be a repeat; go in decpitate the leadership, the oppressed people cheer in the streets we get a oil friendly regime within a year tops. Instead it ended up playing out like a worst case scenario with a high probability of failure. It also didn't hurt that Iraq had #2 most proven oil reseverses or something like that. So if Iraq sold cabbage, or nothing (like Afghanistan) we most like would have far less interested in overturning their govt. (see all of Africa for examples)..

HIGHLY: http://www.npr.org/2009/09/21/112968197/karen-armstrong-builds-a-case-for-god She speaks about Ethos vs Mythos... the rolls in which Science and Faith should play.... Intresting ..

I think you are right .... Also Video game consoles are entirely designed for games and for the price, despite being sold at a LOSS (yes, I said LOSS), are quite expensive. In other words, they are more purposeful, gaming computers could be made but consoles are more friendly and ultimately more profitable. The 90s had a lot of waring back and forth and I suppose that the Console won. I don't think it had to do with graphics alone, it was just that everything made consoles a more viable option.

It has been stated by many that the US war in Iraq and Afghanistan were illegal wars. What could have ordinary citizens who didn't want war done to prevent the US-led war? What was it that fueled the wars? Was it 9/11? Fear of nuclear weapons or desire for oil? What could have ordinary Iraqis, Afghans and Americans done to make sure war did not take place? What could the UN have done? It has now been confirmed that the wars were a big mistake. Very good question! As an American living in the New York area and seeing the C5's flying over head starting a full month before the war had actually started, it became quickly apparent that the war was most certainly inevitable. This was apparent to me, but "not" to George Tenet and the CIA. The US under the neo-con mindset was on a roll and it was one heck of a roll at that; I have read several books on this subject and have even written to the local paper stating that this war was going to roll forward largely due to the fearmongering etc.. To exemplify the climate here, I had family, normally sane people angry at me over my comments, there was tremendous Anti-Bill Clinton scandal anti-dem, pro-neocon, pro strong Republican military climate. I had folks at work CONVINCED that Saddam had Nukes and that the "16 words" uttered out of our POTUS were true. After all it's so "easy" to make a nuclear bomb. For God sakes even the NY Times played dead (like they did before Viet Nam) and even worse played sucker as Cheney used them to "echo". I whole heartedly disagreed with all of it, and I turned out to be right. So where's my award? LOL Getting to your point, there was nothing that could have stopped the US war machine. The neocon White house pressured the UN heavily, we threw out Hans Blix's facts and pulled him out of Iraq. We arm twisted nations which didn't go well but qwelled oppostion enough. We exploited good will and sympathy to achieve this. When the towers dropped, the adminstration didn't even want to mess with Afganistan, they brought up Iraq FIRST, because they saw it as an opportunity to install a viable pro-west and cheap oil regime. Perhaps maybe even push the region in a new "direction". Lets face it, if Iraq was a cabbage supplier, I doubt we would have even cared about Saddam and his daily street hangings and gold machine guns. In fact, we generally supported dictators when it fitted our cold war policy against the USSR etc., funding Saddam against the Iranians suring up oil supplies, etc.. As I saw this all unfold, I KNEW it was just a matter of time before the bombs dropped over Bhangdad, Saddam agreed, releasing thousands of prisoners and hoping for a Viet Nam style resistance. No matter what this war was going to happpen. Now you state the the wars were a mistake, that is a hard thing to guage the terms to which you mean that. The long war may be a failure, but Iraq seems to have turned around largely due to dumb luck, some give the surge credit, I don't. Anyway that is my 2 cents. lol