Absolutely amazing.
The problem we face with Iraq is what an engineer calls "risk managment." The "risk" represented by an adverse scenario has to be compared with the cost of eliminating it (or, in turn, with any other risks which might be generated by a proposed solution, etc.).
The "limp wrists" of whom you speak have apparently never sat down and gone through the disciplined thought processes of assessing the risks in a brutally honest way. The article at the top of this thread is a good example of talking about the issues while completely evading the necessary decisionmaking exercise.
The risk is defined by:
[the magnitude of the seriousness of an adverse scenario] x [the probability of that adverse scenario]
It is important to look at the numbers! It is especially important to notice that:
1) The first term in the risk formula is HUGE. Suitcase nukes and/or Ebola virus (if Saddam ever gets them) could kill literally MILLIONS of Americans.
2) The second term is not zero. If we stretch out the timetable very much longer, it is going to become HUGE, TOO.
That being the case, we don't have any choice other than a proactive, pre-emptive strike to remove Saddam. We must make a decisive strike to eliminate the risk. We should choose the kind of strike which minimizes the fall-out (other "risks"), but we don't have time to study it to death to decide whether the "costs" are too "risky" themselves.
My point is that even if the model is a little more involved than the assessment of a single risk term, we already have an argumentative framework for our decision to strike. (Bush has figured this much out, but the geese on Capitol Hill haven't. I guess that's why they aren't Presidential material.)
As I indicated above, a quick assessment of other terms in the larger equation might change how we decide to take Saddam out, but the nature of the problem is such that it can't change the basic decision. Heck, what we have staring at us right now is already too great a risk.
Tying the whole thing to proving Iraqi complicity in 9/11 is a big mistake. It misses the point of what we are facing as a nation.
The Dick Armeys and the other footdraggers are just typical of what today's Republicans have become. They are afraid to fight. Fighting is not nice. Someone might get hurt.
(This is one of the reasons for the ascendancy of the Dems in our day. Dick Armey hasn't thought about the risks to the Republic if the conservatives don't start fighting the Dems tooth-and-toenail, by the way!)
I am amazed by the number of caricature right-wingers on FR -- people who talk as though their scripts were written by Norman Lear and are auditioning for Archie Bunker 2002.
A true right-winger respects the Constitution thinks for himself.
A caricature right-winger is a knee-jerk warmonger huntin' for Ruskies and ragheads. I thought these caricature right-wingers were invented by the Left. I am amazed to see so many actually exist.
To the armchair generals and warmongers: stop modeling yourself on Archie Bunker. You don't have to promote war to be a patriot and true conservative.