Oh Arne Langsetmo, you are a God-send, how I do love rippin' you to shit! Keep it comim' pal, now lets take a look at your latest offering:

Point 1. OK Arne let us all hear you clearly state that you are fully prepared to live in a country where the, presumably elected, political representatives delegate responsibility and all matters relating to your security and national interests to others.

Arne apart from your personal attack on the the person posting, what have you actually got to say?

One rather obvious point Arne that you seem to continually over look. Saddam and his pet regime in Iraq had had over 12 years to do what was required of them under the auspices of the UN. First via UNSCOM and then by UNMOVIC, whose presence in Iraq was down purely to American pressure. So how much MORE TIME should they have been given - another 12 years? - No, definitely NO, your pal Saddam came up against the only man in the world who could guarantee that he was holding a royal flush and Saddam was stupid enough to try and bluff. The result, a foregone conclusion, Saddam lost. The way you play poker, Saddam would have got away clear and complete, within months the sanctions would have been lifted and he would have been free to pursue any path he wished - well done Arne.

Oh! and Arne, give me one bloody example where in conflict situations the UN has actually ever resolved anything - So don't put too much faith in them, because without the US firmly onboard they ain't worth a shit.

Rarelamb's question: "...does it really matter whether there were wmd?"

No it doesn't. What the world wanted to know was whether or not Iraq did posses WMD. And for as long as Saddam(Bloody)Hussein was in power you would never get an honest answer to that question in a verifiable form that you could have any degree of confidence in.

Now another Arne-ism - "simply declaring something doesn't make it so"

Which he then backs up by saying:

"I'm not disputing that the U.N. declared that co-operation was "essential". What I'm saying is that whether "co-opertion" was "essential" to the primary task of determining whether there were WoMD is far from clear. In fact, I'd submit that it was not (primarily, for the reason I've explained to Teribus, because even if they do "co-operate fully", you need to go an check anyway to make sure that they did co-operate and that they didn't hide anything away)."

Now what Arne fails to recognise is that we are talking about a land mass the size of California, or France. To do things Arne's way successfully requires how many inspectors? I could not begin to fathom, which was why full and pro-active co-operation was required from the outset. The checking relates to records of how much they have made, how much they have weaponised, how many shells/warheads they have armed, how many are offered up for destruction. Arne it is a very simple process - Now you tell me why the Iraqi Government of the day did not play ball. Either they HAD something to hide, or they wanted to create the ILLUSION that they HAD something to hide.

"Teribus: Remarkable achievement the UN had been trying for the best part of five years without success and George W Bush had to park an American Army on Iraq's border before Saddam caved in and invited them back...."

And the evidence that you Arne Langsetmo were pushing was what? That by the bye Arne was what you were asked. Now, please either you answer that question or let it go and acknowledge that the only reason UN inspectors EVER got back into Iraq was because of the actions of GWB ( Shouldn't be too difficult Hans Blix is already on record as saying as much)

"Teribus: One thing is for certain Iraq doesn't have any WMD now, and has no plans to acquire them, and the world and its dog KNOW that."

Arne..."Oh, yeah, one other thing that we also know NOW is that he didn't have any back then. But that same fact could have been determined without Teribus throwing away the lives of 2000 U.S. soldiers."

How Arne?? Saddam was going to tell us and we were going to believe him, Or does your reasoning rely on an American Army of 250,000 being parked on Iraq's borders?

Arne..."Life is cheap to Teribus ... at least soldiers' lives ... but you won't find Teribus signing on for any unit besides the Fighting 101st Keyboarders."

Really Arne? Now come on tell the truth, you know absolutely nothing about me. What you state above is nothing but pure conjecture, but that is always good enough for you, whereas anyone who dares question or doubt your reasoning must jump through how many hoops in order to disprove your groundless assumptions. But I will tell you this sunshine, I have been in harms way for a damn sight greater proportion of my life than not. Whether you have or not is not of the slightest interest to me, but, by what you say and the way you say it, I would rather think not.

"Teribus: The world is in no greater danger from terrorists now than it was before. Go to http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/10/17/war.un.ap/index.html"

Now this was a source that Arne actually asked for. Did he read it? did he comment on it - did he fuck. What we got from Arne was -

"Here ya go. Actually, if you look at the State Department's web page, it ain't there. It got hanked, because the maladministration wants to keep you in the dark rather than admit that things ain't looking up,so they won't post it. But they wrote it, and it ain't a prtty sight."

Now just exactly what is our Yank of Scandinavian descent trying to say here - That he takes as gospel what the Government is telling him about Iraq? You see Arne can do that when it suits him.

"Teribus: Aljazeere.net says nothing about what Arne orginially contended - 99% of Sunni's in some places voting for the new Iraqi Constitution, and shock and surprise neither does the other link

Pick and choose, eh?"

Well you picked 'em Arne. Now you show me in either of those articles where 99% of Sunni voters ANYWHERE voted for the Iraqi Constitution - that is what you were originally implying - IT DIDN*T HAPPEN you pig ignorant stupid bastard - IT DIDN'T HAPPEN - So stop trying to tell people that it did.

Arne's advice to me - You might try reading more than the first paragraph, difficult as that may be"

Mine to him - Try understanding what it is that you are reading, you may find that of some use in formulating a coherent arguement, which you have failed to do so far.

Cheers,