Teribus, I was actually wanting clarification of LadyJean's post, but I'm sure she'll appreciate you telling me what she meant. But you're wrong about that war. Pre-911, governments went out of their way not to categorise/legitimise criminal outrages as war. Can you cite any that did otherwise, thereby accepting all the implications that come with that definition?

The Bush gang deserve credit for being first to spot that the war definitioin brings benefits as well as downsides - increased scope to abuse basic freedoms; to define those who are and those who are not entitled to be treated as a human beings; to pursue selfish commercial interests, etc. And if the US admin is free to decide which organisations are terrorist on the basis of which have attacked the US, is that a rational basis for the doctrine of "those who are not with us are against us" by which the US judges other nations?

I wonder if you're any nearer revising your view that Iraq was the right target, given that Iraq was nowhere near presenting a threat to anyone, whereas Iran plainly is (and the US has got itself too overstretched to do a damn thing about it)?

As for Meacher, my collander has 64 holes, Teribus, but if you could point to, oh, a dozen holes in his article, I would consider that a reasonable start.