[iconoclast]

What's the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan?

Afghanistan was where Bin Ladin and his minions were entrenched and it was controlled by the Taliban which openly supported Bin Ladin.

Iraq, OTOH, was controlled by an aging, secularist, evil, despot who, most experts agree, pretty much limited his actions outside Iraq to sending a few bucks to PLO terrorists.

In anticipation of your next question .... the difference between Iraq and Saudi Arabia is that S.A. is the home of the Wahhabis and the financial sponsor of nearly all the worldwide terror.

Or, maybe your question would be ... what is the difference between Iraq and Pakistan? The answer to that is that Bin Ladin and Al Queda were/are residing in Pakistan but the U.S. decided to pursue imaginary WMD's in Iraq instead!

[Long Cut]

"the U.S. decided to pursue imaginary WMD's in Iraq instead!"

I guess that Sarin shell last week, and the mustard gas one found the week before, were "imaginary" too. Oh, and all the precursors and infrastructure found as well.

I guess the Jordanian chemical attacks didn't happen, either.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"...the U.S. decided to pursue imaginary WMD's in Iraq instead!"

"Imaginary WMD's"?

And these people are imaginary victims of Saddam's imaginary WMD's...correct?

BOSTON, MA (March 21, 1995) - Soil samples taken in 1992 from bomb craters near a Kurdish village in northern Iraq by a team of forensic scientists contained trace evidence of the nerve gas GB, also known as Sarin. This is the same lethal chemical agent identified in the Tokyo incidents of March 19.

In 1988, shortly after the ceasefire that ended the Iran - Iraq war, the government of Saddam Hussein launched a major military offensive against the Kurds in northern Iraq, sending tens of thousands of refugees fleeing into southeastern Turkey. Six weeks later, in October 1988, a Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) medical team interviewed and medically examined dozens of Kurdish refugees who either witnessed or showed physical symptoms of chemical weapons attacks. The team concluded that bombs containing mustard gas and at least one unidentified nerve agent had been dropped on Kurdish villages in northern Iraq.

And that was imaginary as well?

And every single U.N. security council resolution since 1991 was asking Saddam to disarm what exactly?

"...most experts agree..."

What experts exactly?

I asked you to defend a pre-emptive attack on Afghanistan, and you give me "bin Laden and his minions", and justify a pre-emptive strike on Afghanistan based on the fact that the men who planned and implemented the 9/11 attacks was there.

But had we acted pre-emptively, I would argue that the Taliban never attacked us, so your reasoning is faulty at best.

Like the rest of the leftist, or Buchanan's "blame America first" Brigadiers, you would justify a pre-emptive strike against Afghanistan based on events that may have never happened as a result of pre-emptive action!

You blame Bush for not acting pre-emptively to stop the 9/11 attacks based on sketchy information from unconfirmed sources, and give him crap for acting pre-emptively on Iraq, based on solid intelligence from our staunchest allies, AND what was "common knowledge" to the United Nations. Because if they did not believe that Hussein had WMD's, then what the hell where all those "resolutions" about?

And what weapons was he supposed to be disarming?

Here's the REAL question:

Where are Saddam's WMD's?

The whole world believed he had them, hard to believe that they never existed.

As a matter of fact...Saddam believed that he had them.