Moonlight Graham

You don't start a freaking war based on a hunch. If "Curveball" and bogus Niger yellowcake is some of the best you've got, reevaluate. I said "could have", not "should have". Why? Do they know where the WMD's are? It was US policy, re: Iraq Liberation Act, to support regime change (ie: Iraqi pro-democracy opposition groups), not to use military action themselves to do so. The Clinton admin claimed (at least to the UNSC) that the 1998 Desert Fox strikes were legitimate because Saddam broke previous UN resolutions. Which one these resolutions affirmed the right of the US/UK to launch attacks if Saddam didn't comply to end-of-war terms etc.? (seriously, i'm asking). There seemed to have been controversy over launching such attacks without UNSC approval, and without US Congress approval. What was the Clinton admins' claimed reason for legitimacy to Congress? It certainly couldn't have been the Iraq Liberation Act. The US had launched attacks previously to this (ie: 1996). Seriously, i'm curious if you or anyone knows.

What about strategically smart vs strategically stupid wars? My opinion is that the Iraq War was unrighteous, poorly executed, and strategically stupid. Batting O for 3!

This is a foolish perspective. Exerting political power, including violent aggression, needs both the will and the capability to do so, as Ignatieff alludes to. Saddam has always had the will. There are many third-world dictators who have the will, as do terrorist and everyday individuals. What it comes down to then is capability. Saddam did not have the capability. It doesn't make logical, strategic sense to start a war on "well he might gain the capability in the future". Based on this logic, we should start attacking various countries across the globe and invading most of the middle east to destroy all Islamists who may attack us in the future. But that would be a complete waste of resources and lives. With the trillion dollars or so the US has spent on the Iraq War they could have bought 10,000 F-35 aircraft (or whatever combo or war toys) and had an almost unstoppable war machine. Saddam should only have been attacked if he was a clear threat with capability to harm. If that had happened in the future, then wait for it to occur when the threat was actually becoming real, not imaginary. Glad Iggy wasn't Liberal leader in 2003. If Bush wanted regime change, they should have expanded on the Clinton strategy and waited patiently until they had guaranteed intel of the location of Saddam and his boys and then dropped a few missiles on their head. New leadership would have come in, then wait and see what kind of regime that turned out to be. All that would cost is the price of a dozen missiles and some jet fuel.

Exactly. He was being "the good soldier". A "good" military man like Powell is trained to take orders from his commanding officers, despite any personal or moral objections. Woops! Whether Bush himself I knew or not, who knows. The man was a puppet of Cheney and Rumsfeld, and is such a simplistic moron i have doubts he even knew to ask the right questions. Just read the teleprompter, George. What is certain is that Cheney and Rumsfeld knew. Yellowcake claims, Curveball claims. The Bush admin knew these were garbage, but used them to sell the war. Former CIA officers are on record in video interviews claiming that Cheney would come down to the CIA HQ (which they said VP's NEVER do unless for ceremonial purposes) while the National Intelligence Estimate was being constructed and put intimidating pressure on them to find more "evidence" etc. "Many members of the CIA believed that the Vice President himself was determined to control the content of the NIE". link (Watch chapter 4, or read the extended former CIA interviews) Using truth or lies was meaningless, the only thing that mattered to the admin was the effectiveness it had in convincing the public, the rest of the US gov, and other governments to the "justness" of an invasion.

What does what "most Canadians" think have to do with my thoughts? Yes, let's talk about the sanctions, which arguably caused even more death and suffering than the 2003 war. The civilian casualties of the 1991 war are not even comparable, a few thousand are estimated. Never good, but the war was at least legitimate in that Iraq had invaded another country. The 2003 war was a preventive war (not "preemptive"), which is illegal under international law, as if that means anything anyways. Listing all the "disgusts" i have would take far too long. Now run along and continue being another tiny bolt that keeps the machine turning.

A new exclusive interview video interview by The Guardian with the man codenamed "Curveball" who finally admits his lies. Also, a related article: Now Colin Powell is PO'd. As if he hasn't figured this out over the past 7-8 years? nice try Tenet. I hope you they put you on the stand under oath and you say the same thing, then head to prison when they nail you for perjury. Maybe Mr. Drumheller could be a witness: I'm sure Powell has been asking a lot of questions about the B.S. put in his speech before all this came out. This is all just so disgusting. Of course the Bush admin knew Curveball was a crappy source, they were just desperate for any speckle of legitimation for the invasion. They are a bunch of liars, murderers, & war criminals. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Tenet, and any one else (even Powell?) guilty of perpetrating these lies in order to justify their B.S. war should all be strung up and hanged in Saddam-like fashion, fireworks exploding in the background. Maybe the families of dead soldiers or dead Iraqi civilians could kick away the chairs. America, you f***ing disgust me. How Congress and the especially much (but not all) of the American public were/are so ignorant, gullible, and outright stupid not to demand the Bush admin to be held to account for their historic lies. Americans either don't know (ignorance) or don't care (immorality). Congress is more concerned with their next election than justice. The American system & public has failed, & i have little faith Powell's new "concerns" will lead anywhere. The problem is not only that this happened & people are not held to account, but that nothing has been done to prevent something like this from happening again. Unbelievable. For those Americans who have demanded answers and justice, i salute you. Those that are too uninformed/gullible, wake up. For those who know the truth but do nothing about it, the lives of dead soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are on your conscience too and i hope you rot in hell.

So Rae thinks people in the PMO are planning to kill enemies of Islam? Hmm i don't get the comparison or the usage of the word. Rae is an idiot. This was my fav part of the article: BWAHAAHAHAAaAAaaaaaa!! Wow, anything to score political points. What a wuss. I hate Canadian politics, no side ever shuts up with the completely moronic jabs. At least in the US its the pundits who make most of the stupid insults/jabs.

Shhhh this is supposed to be top secret!

I used to think the same thing. Then i did some intense research on the subject, on the history and the ideology of al-Qaeda, Bin Laden, and the Islamist movement. "Western meddling" is only part of the reason why radicals wish to kill us. The other major reason is the radical Islamist ideology that a minority of Muslims such as Bin Laden follow, much rooted in the Islamic writings/teachings of Sayyid Qubt (founder of Qutbism), who expressed the idea of offensive jihad against those who are not "true Muslims", and to have a worldwide conquest of Islam. Do a wiki search of al-Qaeda or read any book/scholarly journal article about the subject and Qutbism will be central, and i encourage everyone to read up on it.

Here's the problem. A large portion of the strongest supporters for action on climate change are young people (18 to 30-somethings). But young people don't vote. Not voting means politicians are less likely to implement said CC policies. Young people do recycle though, so at least there's some hope.

I agree. Much of the charm/humour of the movie was all the incredible things Gump got involved in which is obviously quite unrealistic. He's a fictional character and the story is meant to be both fun/lighthearted in parts and also serious in parts too.

Here's the deal. You can't tell. However, you have to give Muslims the benefit the doubt. Why? Because there are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, and only a small minority of these are Islamists, and only a minority of Islamists are actually attacking or planning to attack the west. A very small minority of Muslims overall are violent towards the West. There are many Muslims who would cheer a 9/11-style attack, but very few of these ppl would actually carry out such attacks. If you want to suspect them all, then fine. But that would be better than thinking all German-Canadians were Nazis conspiring to destroy Canada/allies during WWII, and the same goes for the Japanese. I give all Muslims the benefit of the doubt because odds are high they aren't terrorists. Listen to how ridiculous this sounds. It is completely illogical. How many people in Canada have been kidnapped inside this country by a Muslim and been beheaded? My last count was zero. How many Canadians have been attacked by Muslims inside Canada? I don't know, but it is either zero or very, very few. You have a better chance getting struck by lighting or winning the lottery than getting attacked by a Muslim in Canada, so do yourself a favour & put the gun down and buy yourself a lotto ticket. People's fears of terrorists/Muslims are completely irrational. It happens so rarely to so few people. People get queasy about flying because they are afraid of a terrorist hijack, but how many gazillion flights occur every day/week without incident? Again, much better odds of winning the lottery. Much more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the airport.

Well, at least pretty much all of us can agree on one thing, which is that the attacks on these protesters is awful and quite wrong. I'm with you man, for once. Hope this stops soon and the people get whatever changes they want coming. In Libya and every other country in the world that wants it.

I don't know much about Justin other than he's at least 10 years from being a viable candidate for PM. As for the OP, the only way i'd vote for Bob Rae is if Stockwell Day was leader of the CPC.

All 3 are awesome movies.

Thought Crash was brilliant. There we go again!

Hype-factor is definitely huge with movies. Like you said it will completely change your impressions of a movie. That's why i usually try to watch a hyped movie twice before i judge it if i didn't like it much the first time. I can count dozens of hyped films i wasn't too impressed with the first time and now consider them some of my fav movies ever (ie: The Matrix, LOTR pt.1, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon etc.)

August, there aren't going to be 10 films like "Lawrence of Arabia" or "Gone With The Wind" every year. Kinda setting you expectations a little high. Braveheart, Crash, Forrest Gump are 3 of my fav movies of all-time. Thought Rocky dragged a ton, and Gladiator was good certainly not great.

Seen Inception, The Social Network, and Toy Story 3. Inception was meh, not even worthy of a nomination. I dont see what the fuss is about. The Social Network was very good, i'd give it 4/5 stars. Toy Story 3 was also very good, my fav of the series, but How To Train Your Dragon was even better, the best CG family film ever made IMO and the best movie i saw last year. How that didn't get nominated but Inception did is BS. It really doesn't matter who wins. Last year Inglorious Basterds was better than Hurt Locker (which was still quiet good, but c'mon). Its all subjective blah blah of course. The best film usually wins i think though, so we'll see. It always kind of sucks watching the Oscars since half the films usually haven't been released on home video yet so its kinda hard to have any reaction to any of the winners.

you think any government that isn't democratic is fascist dont you?

This guy could easily do this. As long as he shops at the right local markets and stores. He'd have to sacrifice some things and pay more for less, but i don't think this man is in danger of dying lol.(unless he gets an infection, uh-oh!). Many decades ago people survived just fine on much less than what he will.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db1s-eV-Bd0

never mentioned the Harper gov, i said the House of Commons. 100% of all decisions of Canada to go to war since the Stature of Westminster 1931 came from people within the Commons.

The Canadian Aviation Museum also has a massive hangar (obviously). It's in Rockcliffe and a 15min drive from the Hill.

but wasn't that like 100 years ago? I doubt there's still a giant room inside to house the MP's. Maybe they could use the room i remember with the giant dinosaur (t-rex?) skeleton. Heck, actually maybe they could use the War Museum, when i was there it had a massive space that housed aircraft & other big vehicles, here: Linky. that's not too far from the Hill. We could make the Commons an exhibit there: "A-holes who start wars".