[mburbank]

Don't be a doofus Kevin.

Me getting Herpes is A.) FAR more unlikely than civil war in Iraq and B.) Won't kill thousands of people or potentially destabilize the world.

You're quite right, I don't have an immediatte pln for what to do in the highly unlikely but possible event I get Herpes. If I fail to see the paralell between my health STDwise which even theoretically could only affect a handful of people and the foreign policy of the most powerful nation on earth during a time of war, forgive me.

Do you suppose when planning for the War in Iraq, some general said "Preident Bush, I;d like to propse we make some sort of plan for our actions if we are not, in fact, greeted as Liberals?" and the President said "GEE GENERAL, WHAT'S YOUR PLAN IF YOU GET HERPES"?

I seriously expect more rigour from you.

It is not impossible to make a plan in advance of a situation. It can actually be done. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts about it or would care to hazzard a guess, and in fact you have, side with the Shiites.

I'm not sure wether you meant act on their behalf, who's conytrol we'd pretend to be under or if you meant we should reoccupy Iraq, since you were too busy posing your brilliant Max with Herpes analogy.

My plan would be to get out. I think we've made this just about as bad as we can. Militarily propping up they Shiites as they extinguish the Sunnis or hopping like hell we can get them to deal with them after a civil war better than they are before hand (and I'm not even saying they are dealable with) seems like a recipe for killing a lot of people and gaining nothing. I'm not aware that any foreign policy expert thinks tht in a war between Sunnis and Shiites that we did not participate in, Al Quaeda would gin control of Iraq.

Now you may not like my plan, and you don't have to, and it's not as if it's anything more than talk anyway since the chances of this administrationb doing something I'd agree with are less than my chances of getting Herpes. But it's a damn sight better than saying "I don't see any reason to think about this potentially disasterous state of affairs unless it actually happens. That's how we got into this mess.