Note: It wasn't Sharia under Saddam. He tortured people for political or petty personal reasons, not religious.

Point taken. Back to pre-Saddam?

1) The torture in Iraq must stop*
2) The check is in the mail
3) We won't come in your mouth

*The torture in other countires who are playing ball with us or have nothing that we are interested in, may continue.

You're not supposed to crack jokes on serious threads foot!

It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it.

Let's quantify your analysis of good and bad. Sudan's government has just ordered the African Union out of Darfur. Sudan's military is reported massing for a final assault on Darfur. Where is your attitude? If you (we) are so good, then what do you recommend we do? Of course, being the good guy and responsible, you knew this well reported story. So what do you recommend we do? How 'good' are you?

This is not a 'yes' or 'no' question. Question is chock full of perspectives. So tell me - what does the good person recommend in Darfur where genocide makes terrorist attacks trivial in numbers. What does the good person do?

You have to laugh if you don't want to scream.

Wolf: Thanks. It seems to me you've been slacking in this dept. so I'm trying to cover for you.:p

What? Coming in your mouth?

The US military will get right on that! We'll send in troops....what?...they're all busy?....can we send...?.... that's the only available?....Ok - we'll send in Jerry Lewis, The Harlem Globetrotters, 6,000 beanie babies, a fifth of Old Yeller boubon, and Yul Bryner's corpse. That'll show those ethnic cleansers a thing or two!

Perhapes we should send in the troops that are still stationed around the pacific from treaties and agreements left over from WW2. It's over, that was 60 years ago, we've moved on to other things.

I am not an expert on Dafur, and dont pretend to be.
But I suppose you start with being truly concerned, as you are. I also think goodness is generally found in compassion, a value of human rights. From that stance, strive to understand the range of perspectives, dont squander our assets, form the strategies, articulate the missions, make the hard decisions, act, analyze, respond, adjust...

Perhaps that is too mamby pamby for the hawks here, or too accomodating of the US for those who are decidedly cynical.

For a quick read on the global insta-goodness meter:
Can I own property and not be property?
Can I learn to read?
Does the government condone my beating for any reason?
If my husband throws acid on me, is he convicted of a crime?
Will the government kill me because of the spelling of my last name?

Comparatively, the US is scoring well, not perfectly, sliping on some questions, that's a concern.

Don't be silly, there's no oil there.:rolleyes:

But we can't....terrorists are everywhere. :right:

Ahhhh! Terror! Run! Hide! Stick my head in the sand! Then they can't see me!

Well we can't protect 'everywhere', just where we can find them. We found lots in the Middle East and very few (who want to attack the US) around the pacific. Where are the professional soldiers though? We keep hearing about Guard units being asked to do yet another rotation in Iraq, but we have a standing army of almost 500,000 in the Army alone (not including AF and Navy). Current levels in Iraq are ~120,000, 48,000 of which are NG. What are we doing with the other 452,000 troops we've got?