So he's making fun of people for not knowing a way out of this situation? I'd argue, as you have, that GWB put us in this situation to begin with. People have a right to express their frustration with this. It is, as one of them said, the government's responsibility to deal with it. They, supposedly, have a staff of international diplomats and policymakers that are experts at this. They are simply letting those people know that the choice taken is the wrong one, and to find another way.

I believe that France and Germany, along with basically everyone in the Western world believe that Saddam is, to put it bluntly, evil. If it were as simple as just killing him and everything would be good, as much as it bothers me morally and ethically, I'd do it, because sometimes the ends do justify the means. But that's not the case. If we invade Iraq, we just show the rest of the Middle East that we do have a penchant for unilateralism, and it's just going to piss off more people. There's bound to be some way we can start to show the Middle East that we can coexist on the same planet without getting in each other's way.

I don't know what the alternatives are, but they are bound to exist. If the current administration could show me that they've explored any alternatives, I'd be less argumentative. But it seems that they haven't. If the Kennedy administration had been like this in 1961, the east coast of the US probably wouldn't be here today.

Of course, the thing that pisses me off as much is the fact that the Bush administration is using this whole Iraq debacle as a smokescreen for the progressive curtailing of the civil rights of US citizens, from the so-called Patriot Act, to some people who have just disappeared under the Federal governments expanded authority to detain people without charges. Basically, without saying it, habeas corpus has been lifted across the whole of the nation.

And, for me, that casts unbearable suspicion on the whole of the Iraq affair. Rational citizens think that it's okay to detain people without any of their guaranteed rights, because ``they're terrorists''. Of course, the whole of our legal system gets thrown out the window, because then you've got one organization working as judge, jury, and (hopefully not) executioner.

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out--because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out--because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out--because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me--
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

-Martin Niemoeller