Did Bush invade Iraq to secretly help Israel?

What was "secret" about it? The invasion was pretty much overtly intended to--among several things, all wonderful--help Israel.

In 1996 Richard Perle, Doug Feith and the Wurmsers wrote "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" for an Israeli think tank. One of its prime points was that Israel must push for getting rid of Saddam.

Maybe you've heard of those people? Try reading up on the PNAC or AEI--no, you don't have to read about them on some Truther website, their own words are damning enough. Anyway, guess what these same people were loudly calling for, on every media outlet that would have them (i.e. all media outlets): why, an invasion of Iraq, to get rid of Saddam!

And yes, it was very expressly intended to help Israel's strategic situation, along with ours.

Not too sure how that part worked out.

Only three groups should be concerned about climate change: anybody who farms, anybody who eats food, and anybody who needs water for any other reason than farming.

Oh, and anybody who lives near the coast, but hey, it may be a couple of centuries before our coastal cities are lost. The differences in precipitation, soil moisture, and water supply under the Republican Global Warming Plan (i.e. doing nothing) will turn nearly the entire US sunbelt into desert by the end of this century.

So hey, if you hate America, or, for that matter, industrial civilization and the 6+ billion people who rely on it for survival, let's do nothing about anthropogenic global warming. Like we've been doing.

PS: To those zealots who say call ALL republicans are hypocrites, it is easy not to be a hypocrite when you have no moral or ethic standards.

No, it's easy not to be a hypocrite when you don't run around claiming that it's the government's job to poke its nose into who you can marry or what kind of advice you can get from your OB-GYN, and that it's Gawd Almighty that licenses you to trash teh gheys. Sanford, like all the religious right, made his own damn bed. Let him lie in it.

My ethical standards include not running away and lying to everybody when you've got a position of some public trust. So fuck you right back, you sanctimonious prick.

Geez, none of you guys' explanations have enough pizazz. Come on, let's start thinking like cheesy Hollywood screenwriters. Now, what's unique to Argentina?

Penguins? No. Done already.

Gauchos? Uh-uh.

Tango instructors? Hmm, those won't do...

...Snap! I got it! OLD NAZIS!

Sanford's in cahoots with Mengele's assistants, or something. And the Illuminati. C'mon, conspiracy theorists, let's get moving on this, chop chop!

Why, no one should. Unless, that is, they're IN SOUTH CAROLINA PAYING HIS @^$%%*#! SALARY.

Sure, if he wants to go on a mystery vacation, just say so: "I'm taking off for a week." "Where to, Governor?" "Not telling. I want a little privacy." Fine. Let people speculate to their heart's content. But can anyone here take a week off from their job (let alone their wife and family), without telling anybody, without explanation, without leaving any contact information, and still have a job left to return to?

I didn't think so.

It's in a movie about The Runaways.

She's playing Cherie freakin' Curie.

So the proper response is

Hello Daddy, hello Mom,

I'm your ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-CHERRY BOMB!

(So...who plays Joan Jett?)

Hell, I don't even think they're fighting to end the theocracy. Would they be shouting "Allahu akbar" every night if they were?

And Jonathan, you think they're fighting to be friends with Israel? Seriously?

If these people get what they want, they're not going to be doing everything--or even anything--that the west, the neocons, or the oil companies want. They'll probably still build nuclear power plants. (Bombs are another matter. Maybe they should enter into negotiations with The-Middle-Eastern-Nuclear-Power-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.)

Yes, they want to trade with us, and have diplomatic relations. But that's it, from our point of view.

They're certainly not going to--or even be able to--make things all better for us in Iraq and the Ak-Pak screwup. In Iraq, we got rid of their enemy and put the Shiites in power, and in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the (Sunni) Taliban has squat to do with (Shiite) Iran.

Anybody who thinks the Iranians are doing this for our benefit needs to watch the videos I link to. In the first two, a young woman shot by a Freeper--er, Basiji--gunman dies, literally in her father's hands. (Warning: it's horrific.) This is not being done for our entertainment.

OT PS: Sorry, that was unfair to compare their armed religious rightwing nutjobs to ours. After all, it's been more than a week since ours have shot anybody!

EXACTLY one pixel, in just one place, while the entire rest of the document is perfect?

What did you expect? A half a pixel? Do you know what "digitize" means?

I agree with your point completely, but then I would consider the birth control pill, the IUD, and the reliable condom among the most important innovations in human history.

Why they are being fought so resolutely by the world's largest church has always evaded me. But it's an excellent illustration of how cultural factors can sabotage technological advance, even necessary ones.

The more you feed the lion, the more he'll roar.

I was thinking more of the old reggae lyric:

The higher the monkey climb, the more he expose

which certainly describes O'Reilly.

As for the debate at hand--appear as O'Reilly's screaming target, or avoid him like the plague--I keep going back and forth. I figure if I went on his show, I'd end up pounding on him.

Hmmm. I guess that puts me in favor.

But, really, I think anytime O'Reilly, (or Limbaugh, Hannity ad nauseum) launch a jihad against someone, the first impulse ought to be to call them out into neutral turf, and engage them there. They won't do it? Who's the chicken, then?