Tom Clancy and one other book is what you base your assertion on? Heh. Find me some qualification requirements on the web. The military has a huge net prescence, you should be able to find it with a little footwork.

Then why are you such a pompous ass to those you deem uneducated?

I'm sorry, I didn't realize you needed me to fully qualify that statement, allow me to rephrase it - a doctorate isn't hard to obtain provided you have the necessary intelligence to pursue one; most people don't.

If education is so easily attainable (even your vaunted PolySci Degree) then why are you so superior to the rest of us?

It only appears that way when because I end up correcting or educating people when they make erroneous statements that pertain to my field. Do you see me correcting astrophysicists about rocket science? No. Why? Because I don't know zip about rocket science.
However, I don't delude myself into thinking I honestly know anything about it, so I don't blather on inanely about sunjectss I don't understand either when it comes to serious discussion about serious issues. That's something more people need to understand - yourself included.
If you knew what I knew, and constantly saw all the outright idiocy-and that's what it is-that people try to pass off as "knowledge" in regard to international affairs your response will pretty much come in at being either amused or offended most of the time.

You think your a better person than the average joe because you have an education.

I am a better person. Not solely for posessing a higher education, but because I choose to inform myself of what's really going on in the world while most people simply accept what they're told at face value. I act to make things better while they don't. There's a word for those sorts of people...sheep.
They do nothing to make the world a better place, they're entirely indifferent and that offends me just as much, if not more so, than the kind of criminal behaivour people like Bush engage in. At least the people like Bush understand the big picture and have chosen a side. I don't like what they've chosen, but I respect they've chosen it.
Give it 15 years then come talk to me and see if your perceptions are still the same.

Here's a terrific quote from Terry Pratchett in that regard.

Patrician: 'Let me give you some advice, Captain, he said.'

Vimes: 'Yes, sir?'

Patrician: 'It may help you make some sense of the world.'

Vimes: 'Sir.'

Patrician: 'I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people,' said the man. 'You’re wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.'

He waved his thin hand towards the city and walked over to the window.

Patrician: 'Down there, he said, are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathsomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no.'

Whats your take? Reading newspapers hasn't given me enough information to draw a conclusion

It would take far too long to explain it all here but suffice it to say that you may mark my words that if and when they catch Hussein, it won't change anything there - if anything it may actually increse the violence.
You need to understand the historical big picture of the US's involvement in the entire Middle-East.
Ironically, Hussein's Sunni Baathists were the US's biggest supporters as far as Muslims go. The Sunni are the moderates of the Muslim world, whereas the Shi'ite are all about stringent, religious theocracy. They view America's prescence in Iraq-as well as the Middle-East-as an offense. We're seen as thieves and corruptors, and truth be told, they're not far wrong as pertains to big business there.
Arabs have long memories and we've been screwing with them for over 50 years now.
That's not even opening up the can of worms that is Israel.

Cthulu loves you. On a bun. With catsup.

This comment was edited on Aug 19, 18:53.