response 6 of 122:

Jul 23 00:13 UTC 2003

nad it was a 6 hout firefight...

response 8 of 122:

Jul 23 02:24 UTC 2003

re resp:3: Given that we're not packing up and leaving Iraq to be re-
taken over by Baathists led by Saddam and/or his family... you'd have 
rather used another method of digging out these people, such as maybe 
occupation for another 10 years?

While I have a lot more misgivings over the invasion of Iraq than I 
did at the start of the war, I'd still say that

1) The Hussein sons were part of the problem we invaded Iraq to solve;

2) While they lived, they were very likely to be a continuing problem;

3) It was a whole lot cheaper to get someone to sell them out than to 
find and arrest and/or kill them

4) Even so, I bet $15 or $30 million in reward money was a drop in the 
bucket of the money we spent in trying to find these people.

We're spending a few billion per month or thereabouts in fighting in 
Iraq, as well as more American soldiers' lives every day.  This was 
not a big expense.  It was probably money pretty well spent.

response 10 of 122:

Jul 23 06:06 UTC 2003

Irrelevant.  The rewards had to sound big to Americans, because they need to
convince Americans that Bush is tough on Sadam.

response 12 of 122:

Jul 23 13:46 UTC 2003

Actually, any Iraqi who collects the bounty on Saddam or his sons is very
likely to become the biggest assassination target in Iraq.  I expect the first
dollar spent will be on a plane ticket to Switzerland.  So don't bet on a lot
of this money circulating in Iraq.

response 14 of 122:

Jul 23 15:29 UTC 2003

I actually agree with twenex on this issue.

Fuck all the rest of you Bush bashing crybabies.
None of you have a clue about politics...you just think it's "cool" to be a
liberal dipshit.

I think all liberals should be exiled..to France.  You can all buttfuck each
other there.(Oh yea I forgot...you scumbags have changed our law on that also)
Actually I think it would be better if you would all get AIDS and die.
So buttfuck away liberal scum

response 16 of 122:

Jul 23 17:02 UTC 2003

Ann Coulter.  ROTFLMAO!!!

response 18 of 122:

Jul 23 17:33 UTC 2003

Responses 2, 3, 10 and 12 are more or less straight Bush-bashing.  No 
matter what happens, no matter what he does, Bush is wrong, and is 
going to get criticized for it.  The arguments given were not 
reasonable, they are exclusively partisan.  It's surprising to see who 
is acting that way, but even the most thoughtful, reasonable and best-
spoken amongst us are devoted to our opinions.  I certainly am.  
There's no reason that better people than me can't be as well.  But in 
this item, their comments so far pretty much have to be discounted, as 
they don't have a shred of fairness to them.

We have invaded Iraq and successfully driven out Saddam Hussein's 
government.  Anything done from this point on has to accept that that 
has happened, and nothing can undo it.  If you don't start there, 
you're not in the real world and your comments are fully irrelevant.

Since we're in Iraq, we're not going to abandon the results of our 
efforts to this point.  We're not going to abruptly pull out of Iraq.  

We are going to put in some more effort (and American soldiers, and 
lots and lots of money) and make things work as well as we can, 
according to the plan we've been using so far and any modifications to 
it that are made.

And the president is going to declare this all to be a success.  His 
political opponents are going to declare it to be a miserable failure.  
Neither of those facts is based on any other facts at all.  They're 
completely independent of anything that happens in Iraq.

In that context -- the real world -- spending $30 million to target 
Saddam's main goons (and heirs) makes sense.

response 20 of 122:

Jul 23 17:41 UTC 2003

I thought criminals of war were supposed to be tried by tribunals 
instead of this cowboy-style assassinations. 

200 plus helicopter gunships versus four. Heh, some trial.

response 22 of 122:

Jul 23 20:29 UTC 2003

I can see where you might consider resp:10 to be "Bush Bashing" but
resp:12 isn't even about him.

It's entirely possible that my opinions of Bush's policies are colored
by the fact that he disgusts me so much.  I think he's the worst president
that we've had in my life, easily displacing Nixon for the title.  I have
so little respect for his integrity, for his ability to give a damn about
anybody but himself, that it is difficult for me to believe there are
honest motives behind anything he does.

response 24 of 122:

Jul 23 21:13 UTC 2003

re resp:22: resp:12 continued the tone established in resp:10, and
it  gave this message: "No matter what, it's bad and it's Bush's fault".   
Resp:11 facetiously cites a slight economic benefit to Iraq for the  reward
money and you even have to vigorously dispute *that*?  It was  certainly clear
you hated Bush.  Your resp:12 was about Bush.

re resp:21: Aren't you the guy who defends the right to abortion as 
being moral because the law says it's legal?  Why are you now talking 
about crime?

No crime was committed.  The Hussein boys were dealt with in the way 
anyone is dealt with who is resisting arrest with guns.  I'm sure we'd 
have rather had them in custody than blasted apart by bombs.

I don't agree with the military tribunals, either.  I'm not in favor of 
a policy of assassination, but then, I don't think we (generally) have 
one.  

response 26 of 122:

Jul 24 00:08 UTC 2003

You seem to be the one with difficulty with simple, clear, English.

From http://www.cnn.com/2002/LAW/11/04/us.assassination.policy/

"In a section of the order labeled "Restrictions on Intelligence
Activities," Ford outlawed political assassination: Section 5(g), entitled
"Prohibition on Assassination," states: "No employee of the United States
Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political
assassination." 

"Since 1976, every U.S. president has upheld Ford's prohibition on
assassinations. In 1978 President Carter issued an executive order with
the chief purpose of reshaping the intelligence structure. In Section
2-305 of that order, Carter reaffirmed the U.S. prohibition on
assassination. 

"In 1981, President Reagan, through Executive Order 12333, reiterated the
assassination prohibition. Reagan was the last president to address the
topic of political assassination. Because no subsequent executive order or
piece of legislation has repealed the prohibition, it remains in effect.

That is, until some subsequent presidents just ignored the policy, most
recently, and mostly clearly, by Bush.

response 28 of 122:

Jul 24 00:55 UTC 2003

Wait a minute, Rane.  I don't necessarily agree that yesterday's attack 
was an assassination.  Would you care to support your assertion?

I generally think of assassinations as being highly covert, attacks 
very specifically directed individually at a single person with no 
intention to harm anyone else, carried out by a single person, and 
using weapons such as a handgun or knife, or poison.

It is very much a legitimate military operation -- and not an 
assassination -- to attack a military installation for an opponent.  
It's legitimate to attack a military leader with weapons of war in 
order to disrupt the opponent's ability to make war.  It wasn't an 
assassination attempt when Clinton sent cruise missiles into Yemen 
against Osama bin Laden's base, or when Reagan sent cruise missiles 
against Moammar Khaddafy in Libya -- were they?  I never heard anyone 
call either of those attacks an "assassination attempt".

It is a legitimate police action to respond with force to someone who 
is resisting arrest.  For example, the assault on the Branch Davidian 
compound in Waco, Texas was not an assassination attempt, it was an 
effort -- which went badly wrong -- to arrest the leader of the Branch 
Davidians.  At least that's how I understand it.