I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't see this thread when it first appeared. Let me say that Colin Rand, who started this thread, is a good friend of mine. We visit and play music whenever the opportunity presents itself. I've been telling him about Mudcat and I see he's found us. Welcome, Colin.

In answer to Colin's question, no I don't think a preemptive war on Iraq is legit. I agree with the philosophy in the article Don posted that a President has no Constitutionally mandated authority to declare war. I agree that Saddam Hussein is a bad guy but I don't think an all-out war is required to solve the problem.

For some reason the U.S. national phyche clings to this black-or-white, good-or-bad, no-shades-of-gray, with-us-or-against-us, love-it-or-leave-it, I'm-right-you-don't-matter mentality that oversimplifies everything and understands relatively little. We seem so often to be playing Alexander to the rest of the world's Gordian Knot. That solution is fine for meaningless puzzles but falls seriously short when it comes to human interaction.

      - Mark