To: Neocon who wrote (103637 ) 7/1/2003 2:36:52 PM From: Bilow Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 281500 Hi Neocon; Re: "I am personally transmogrified into a "complete coward" and a "world class coward", because I notice that people underestimated the threat from Germany in the '30s, only to rue it at the end of the decade? " Nah, you were born a complete world class coward. It became evident when you went all lily-livered over imaginary WMDs, and then decided to kick sand in the face of a 90 pound weakling. You should have more respect for our parent's generation. Taking down Hitler was a bit of work. Re: "In the early '30s, Germany did not at all look like a juggernaut, it looked like a nation that was prostrate, and even Hitler was not confident he could win a war in the mid- '30s. " (1) Chamberlain didn't give in to Germany in the "early '30s", so what's your point. (2) Throughout modern history Germany has been on the world forefront in every branch of technology useful in the military. This was something that any thinking man was aware of during the interwar period. Iraq, by comparison, still can't manufacture jet aircraft engines, a technology which we mastered more than 50 years ago. What a coward! Re: "In any event, conventional military force was never the issue with Iraq ... " This would make a lot more sense if those damn WMDs hadn't all of a sudden evaporated like a mirage, LOL. What you've got now is a new Taliban situation, but in a country 3x bigger than Afghanistan, and somewhat more advanced in technology. The Iraqis may be putzes when it comes to WMD technology (it took 10 tons of their Gulf war gas to kill a single Iranian soldier), but they are undoubtedly world class at manufacturing explosive vests. And kicking over the hornet's nest when you don't have the guts to kill the hornets is never a good thing to do. -- Carl