...all in agreement that we brought this shit on ourselves?

HC,

Fer sure... but in no way do I feel responsible on a personal or local basis.
I'd rather take a Taoist position and admit that dumb people rule. What else
is new?

I consulted my constitutional mentor last night and he informs me that
Congress declares war, but that the president has the right to send the
troops wherever for 90 days and that if someone shoots at them then they can
shoot back to their heart's content and as much as the president tells them
to and he does not have to ask Congress. The practice, as opposed to the
principle, got us this far; of some 210 conflicts it seems the US has
declared war only 5 times.

As to the French and Germans (both of whom make up significant portions of my
ancestry -- so I would appreciate dropping the Nationalist slurs, or at least
inventing new and witty ones), my understanding is that they have been
working on negotiating oil deals w/ Iraq for quite some time, in anticipation
of resolution of the UN sanctions, and that if the US goes in and starts
shooting that it throws the French deals out the window. Whose oil are we
talking about? Arthur Koestler writing about his adventures in Europe during
WW2, to say nothing of Celine's stories, gives a good perspective on the
absurdist relevance of global conflict. I suspect the only thing that keeps
humans from blowing everything to crap is that those with the means to
persist got satiated & worn out in the last century. Obviously Ossama &
Saddam & their folks did not get enough.

I also understand that the US told Saddam that he could have a piece of
Kuwait the last time around, some of their oil reserves, only he got greedy
and took too much and we therefore had to go in to slap him around as a
result.

You got any info on the Jewish utopia that Stalin created in the Soviet
Union? A precursor to Israel. I'd never heard of it until the other day. What
gives?

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