As I pointed out yesterday, the various 'liberal hawks' and war cheerleaders haven't changed their tune for the simple reason that they have no real personal stake in the actual conflict.

It isn't them or their loved ones going away, getting mangled and killed, all in the name of...well, whatever the justification is this week. Their livelihood is not at threat at the loss of a partner or bread-winner, nor are their children at risk of loosing one or both parents.

Perhaps I'm being unfair and some of these 'hawks' honestly and sincerely believe military occupation of another country will spread 'American values' and transform the world. Perhaps they even believe such a chimera (and make no mistake, that's all it is) is well worth 4,000+ American lives.

But not their own life. Never must they themselves or their own families pay the price for invoking this disaster.

To hell with them and their self-serving plans and pleas, I say.

They've had their day and their say. If there were any real justice in the world, or if they had even a modicum of actual self-awareness, they'd politely bow off the stage and let people who actually know what they're doing take over.

If only.

Shooter’s right. -- talesofunrest

More like an absolute conservative, in the sense he's deliberately kept himself unevolved and unchanged since falling out of the cradle.

Our incursion into Iraq has been the most well-mannered invasion of all time. Nope.

Tell that to the hundreds of thousands dead because of it.

All out war, with a nuclear exclamation point, covered by live TV, is still out there waiting to happen.

Granted, and all the more reason to avoid it, not invoke it with a cry of "Bring it on!".

Consider that Ahmadinejad's job during the Iran-Iraq war was sending children out into minefields as sacrificial lambs to preserve the lives of fighters. For some people nothing is off limits.

A non sequitor and an irrelevant observation. The conduct of others should not become the standards of our own actions.

Ah yes, diplomacy. Like an average two year old, nations will soon discover that what we say is largely meaningless and that they can do anything they like without fear of repercussions.

Very true. Hence the pointlessness of your calls for 'military isolation'. To borrow a phrase you appear so fond of: you are either for it, or against it.

If you are for it, this means you are prepared to watch the rest of the world explode and are unwilling to do the hard, often unrewarding work to minimize the damage.

If you are against it, you stand revealed as a hypocrit and moral eunuch.

Darfur is a prime example of tough talk, as is Zimbabwe. No stick leaves only carrots to be exploited a la North Korea.

A shallow and completely inaccurate portrayal of each situation, but only to be expected from one such as you.

Do you think it is necessary to accept the premise that, in the absence of military intervention by the U.S., the rest of the world will “explode?” -- talesofunrest

Far from it. After all, the world survived just fine between 1783 and 2001 without the US throwing its military weight around like a rabid elephant.

If, however, shooter242 wishes to play such rhetorical games, I'm more than happy to cram his words back down his throat.

It is true that those who advocated war are not really worthy of supplying possible solutions. But also, those who were against the war were not advocating sensible alternatives about what to do with dictators and terrorists. So anti-war people are not especially qualified either.

There have already been a good many plans offered about how to move forward and out of this quagmire, most considerably more sensible and practical than this short-term "Surge" the Administration has been relying on.

Consider the following:

http://responsibleplan.com/plan

The real solution is that in the same way we have local police to stop local violence, we should create an international police force for stopping international violence (war and terrorism).

That presupposes 'Iraq' is still a functioning, cohesive society, which it is NOT. Like it or not, 'Iraq' only exists as a geographical notation on the map; in reality its become little more than a collection of ethnically-cleansed regions with no loyalty to Baghdad or the Green Zone and only the vaguest standards of law and order. Certainly they owe little to the Americans who invaded and decimated their country and economy; I'm hard pressed to see why introducing an 'international police force' into the mix will aid anything.

And if you expect any kind of 'international' police force to stop international violence, you're better off inventing a time machine and traveling to some distant future when we humans all are the same color, creed, language and culture. Otherwise you're just dreaming of something that isn't going to happen in this day and age, least of all because 'international law' is such a vague and unenforceable notion at this time.

Until anti-war advocates engage properly in this issue, the stagnation will continue, which is Slaughter's valid point.

Miss Slaughter just wants to save her professional neck. If she were serious about moving forward, she'd have offered some concrete steps of a plan herself. Instead, all we get is a bunch of vague goals and self-important whining.

Kinda like the 43rd President, when you think about it.