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[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Not Bob
I criticize people who are either incompetent or reckless with the truth. I am a litigator. If I told my client that I had a slam dunk case for a TRO to shut down a copyright infringer, and instead my case dragged on for 2 years, and cost them lots of money without getting the TRO, I would (and should) be canned.

Is America better off without Hussein? In a moral sense, maybe. From a strategic sense, I think that he was pretty well contained, and that he was no longer a threat to his neighbors. I think that the invasion has hurt the US because it diverted our attention from Afghanistan and other problems in the war on terror.

Are the Iraqi people better off? I would guess that they would be in a better position to answer that question. Most of the atrocities that you will no doubt cite occurred before, or in the immediate aftermath of, the first Gulf War. I'm not ready to say that it's a bad thing that he's gone, but I'm safe here in Podunkville. I'm not one of the people blown up by a car bomb in Baghdad, or caught in the crossfire in Fallujah.

Nonetheless, we overthrew him, and now we are stuck in Iraq, and we can't just leave the place broken. But why should we allow the people who didn't listen to the advice of those (like Powell and Franks) who may have favored overthrowing SH, but warned of the very problems that we are now seeing, get a free pass on criticism? There are *still* problems with getting plates for Kevlar vests to our troops on the ground. There are *still* problems with getting Humvees uparmored. Why doesn't this bother you?

Returning to my TRO analogy, 2 years after the suit is filed, the executives at the company -- those who agreed that filing was a good idea as well as those who disagreed -- all probably think that the legal approach I pursued was ineffective. Was I puffing my chances of getting the TRO, or was I just incompetent? Does it matter? My approach has failed, and since I don't seem to recognize this, and instead keep insisting that I'm going to win any day now without really aknowledging that I screwed up (although now I say that I'm going for long-term results, and a judgment for an injunction instead of a mere TRO), why should my clients be satisfied with an answer like "well, either you think that the infringer should have been left alone, or you should agree with me?"

Translation for Spanky's simplistic world: Not Bob hates America.