Some guy came to my house, Alan, and said he was considering burning down your house. We discussed ways that we could work together on this project, but after some consideration, I decided to bow out.

If your house burns down tomorrow, was I involved?

Conspiracy to abet? How did the bowing out occur? Did you give false hope and then never convey your retraction?

I clearly indicated that this wasn't for me, thank you very much. I gave him my phone number in case there would be future projects I may be interested in.

...and the cops are aware of all this? What do you think they would take "future projects" to be code for? Meanwhile, the guys in the next van over on the next street over are finding out that there is much interest in aiding and abetting you communicant. Where do the police place there resources and attention?

The police should focus their efforts on maximizing results while staying within the law. If I, for example, have had previous run-ins with the law, my meeting with known criminals may be enough to push for a search warrant and further polished leather boot and wooden truncheon action. Whereas the guys in the van, let's call them "Cy Ryan" and "I. Rainian", may be pretty shady characters but not enough to call in the swat team ... yet.

That is not what the reports say. I Rainian is now appearing to be the man on the scene based on the information that was available when the detectives crashed into the next neighbourhood on a very thin warrant. Why did they miss the big player? When cops go in the wrong direction, there are investigations, people loose jobs, get demoted. When they do not, what is going on with the cops?

Well, legality is key: no matter how nasty you think someone is, you have to be very careful of just going and knocking down his door. Especially since. Mr. Ranian has a lot of touchy friends and relatives. Quite frankly, we're all mystified why I wasn't put back in Jail after I blatantly broke the conditions of bail after another incident of a similar sort in 1991. Fortunately, that problem has been addressed now.

Hardly addressed. You are only a former corner nickle bag man who was nasty to the folks on that street corner. The cops have missed the big supplier to the crack house that got the kids all addicted. Why?

Block that metaphor! Block that metaphor!

Here's what strikes me: it cost less than a lovely three-bedroom bungalow in The Annex to plunge the most powerful country in the history of civilization and the people who rule it into a tailspin that has them issuing terrorist alerts, starting wars, establishing puppet governments, closing borders, changing immigration and visa policies, and violating not only international laws and conventions but their own constitution.

What is the most grotequely under-estimated cost of the activites the US has engaged in since 9/11? Surely it must be rocketing up on a trillion dollars, Not to say many of those costs aren't justified - one must feel safe in one's own home(land). But still ... the terrorists' investment of under a half a million dollars - say, three Hummers, fully loaded ... must be the bargain of the ages.

Are there WMDs? Were there ever? Does it matter? In point of fact, the most serious damage ever done to America was done by fewer than a dozen drab little men wearing windbreakers from WalMart and armed with box-cutters.

Can't block the metaphor just yet...

I'm a well know reprobate that and previously squated in several nearby houses that everyone wanted in jail until the unpopular and somewhat mentally stunted Chief of Police decided it was actually time to do it.

--

I'm not going to overly argue Nils points. There was trillions of dollars of damages done the US by 9/11. The "puppet government" is an interm government with the point of achieving stability before transition of power; in 5 years the government of Iraq will be a US puppet no more than, say, France's is today. The war was a continuance of the Gulf War, "legal" because of because of cease fire voilations on the part of Iraq; the immigration changes, visa policies at all should have been changed long before 9/11 because the danger existed before that point; laws are unconstitutional when struck down by the courts -- very few parts of the laws will be; no international laws, except those made up in the heads of "activists" for there own self-satisifaction, were broken. Ask the survivors of the gassings by Saddam whether there were WMDs, or Hans Blix et. al. who were routinely finding the evidence was being hidden and moved before they could investigate them.

As for the dozen + 7 drab little men, this is the biggest failure of Bush, who should have plainly articulated, such as his limited abilities are capable of, that if your plane is hijacked in the future, you're on your own to take it back if you want to get back on the ground in one piece.

I cannot read tea leaves so I will leave the future to itself.

My only point that the efforts, according to the 9/11 commission may have been against the lesser problem. The US has done this before: be mad at Cuba, kick Grenada; Syria bombs US troops in Germany at a night club, attack Libya. I am not suggesting at all that there is a gutlessness about it only a lack of focus or a pack of good intellegence. Learning that the CIA had less than 100 Arab speakers even a year ago is telling. I disagree with David on one point - Bush has empowered his population and another jet attack would be met as the fourth was. It is not about either capacity or will power or really even the goal. It is about the focus. Or as GB Sr would say, the focus thing.

My take...had the terrorists known America would respond, they might have called the whole thing off. Thank Reagan in Beirut, AND Clinton in Africa for emboldening the Islamic extremists...a truly bipartisan, bleeding-heart blunder that incredibaly, continues to threaten us today.

Good point, Wayne, but I wonder sometime if there isn't a big factor of nihilism in all this signing up to be a terrorist thing.

I agree with Alan (it happens, deal with it) ... I think there is more than a little nihilism when the time comes to sign up. (Kinda pisses me off that if a cult ever forms to worship me, that name is already taken).

I'm not sure from the tone of David's response whether he misunderstood my main point - which was not a criticism of all the US government's reactions to 9/11, but more a reflection on the almost incomprehensibly large returns on what was a minimal investment by the terrorists. As it happens, I do find much to question about some of the reaction, but other parts I found eminently reasonable.

About the puppet government, and please, let's not pretend it's anything but that: David is right - its face will almost certainly change in the years to come. I fear, though, that it will be a lot less like France and a lot more like the face of Iraq's neighbour to the East.

I'd bet you a pint of your favorite that I'm right about the nature of the government of Iraq in 2009, but the exact conditions would be too difficult to pin down. I'll tell you what Nils, we both have a drink tonight and in five years time, depending on who won, we can look back and say "that other guy should have paid for it"...

No fair. I want ale based betting where the ale is delivered one way or another in under 12 months at a table in a cool pub on a hot day glass glistening where, after the first long sip you get to look the other in the eye and say "you lose, pay the man".

Screw it. I may not be around in 2009. I say if the first free election in Iraq doesn't produce some sort of fundamentalist theocracy along the lines of the Iran model, I'll be surprised enough to buy David a beer. And yes, I, like Alan, am a traditionalist when it comes to this sort of bet.

We have the technology! We have credit cards! We can phone in the price of a pint to a bar of the winner's choice!

PayDrinkingPal?

All this talk, and no one has mentioned Iran and its work towards nukes ("..Iran would not give up its development of the nuclear fuel cycle, the steps for processing and enriching uranium necessary for both nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Iran says it has achieved the full cycle, but is not NOW enriching uranium..."
oh yeah, sure; see: apnews.myway.com/article/20040612/D835OR1G0.html)?

Should not Iran, for this reason alone, be in the Bush "cross-hairs"?

This might be Iranian posturing, but my money is on an Israeli air strike (a la Osirak)in the not too distant future, if this UN "constructive engagement" bullsh*t doesn't produce any results. One North Korea is quite enough, thank you very much.

I'm in for the first election bet that Iraq won't be a Iran-style theocracy. Alan can be our unbiased adjudicator.

We'll coordinate the payment system somehow. Paypal or if you're in Canada we'll work it out.

Not to loose a beer but trying not to take advantage: won't the new Iraqi Constitution FORBID a "Iran-style theocracy"?

That's "lose" not "loose". Sorry.

Good point ... note the qualifier "free" elections. If what gets put in place is an election process that culls the candidates to weed out any that are, say, "unfriendly to U.S. interests" ... well, all bets are suspended.

If you enjoy this kind of spirited, yet civilized debate on the Iraq situation, have a look at crankychick's blog http://www.crankychick.net/blog/weblog/archives/000816.html

CrankyChick and I don't always (or even often) agree, and I'm pretty sure she thinks I'm a leftist dupe (as opposed to Alan, who is confident I'm a dupe of the right) ... but she's fun to debate and makes strong points.

...perhaps I think you are an eccumenical dupe...

Oh, I'm fairly sure the US is not going to let the first election be too much a free-for-all. That's why I liked the 5 year period...

I like this op-ed in the NYT this morning on "the wrong Ira-".