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First things first. I'd like to apologize for the tone of my original post. It was completely out of line, and I should know better.
Michael, your posts are not drivel. They typically contain well-written, thorough, sound reasoning. My reaction was to what is sometimes contained at the end of your posts. You sometimes address others in a demeaning tone that seems intended to intimidate. This is contrary to the idea of this forum.
It is possible to get our ideas across without the venom. I lost sight of that and wrote with emotion rather than reasoning. It won't happen again.
Now, my views on this subject. I believe we should allow the inspectors another shot at monitoring Iraq. Why start a conflict when it may be possible to avoid one in a relatively simple manner. Having said that, I do believe Saddam is a threat to the region, and one that is not likely to go away. If he reneges on his promise to allow access to inspectors, the UN and US need to seriously consider what the next step should be. I would prefer that we not be forced to intervene repeatedly as he invades his neighbors.
I don't believe in the implicit trust of government officials, nor do I believe in the implicit distrust of them. I use the best information available to me. Yes, this typically does mean the major US media.
It also means watching some foreign news via satellite. While the commentary and editorials differ widely, the reported news is fairly consistent, with the possible exception of Palestinian News, which rarely makes a distinction between news and editorial.
So my question for some of the posters here is this...if every independent media source is beholden to their advertisers, and therefore lies to us, whom are we to believe? Do state-run media outlets have more credibility? Even donor supported stations such as NPR have people who donate to them, and these people have an ideology that NPR caters to. Does this make them untrustworthy? As a young person preparing to enter the workforce, would you sacrifice your morals to work for these media companies? If not, why do you believe that everyone who works for these companies has?
My 2 cents. I hope it's a little more constructive than the 'drivel' I posted last time.
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