Keith Devens .com

Right. The following is certainly not significant -

1. Germany, who has the largest military force stationed outside its borders (not counting the US), and is largely handling the mess in Afghanistan, is against the war.

2. India is against the war.

3. France, tradionally one of our greatest allies, is a hair away from being considered an enemy of the US.

4. The Engish populace, outside of Tony Blair, is largely against the war.

5. Russia is against the war, and is threatening pulling out of the War on Terror if this military action occurs.

6. The Pope is against the war.

Its great that we have the trustworthy nation of Turkey (whose government massacered more Kurds than Saddam) on our side.

Rather than the articles laughably simplistic reasons for not-supporting the war (France likes dictators with mustaches???), consider that perhaps these countries might have a couple of valid reasons .

However, I must say that I DO think that you'll get the war you so desperately want. The United Sates does have the military power to do whatever it wants. I'm sure Baghdad will be a sea of glass soon.

I wonder what happens afterwards, once we've blown all our allies in the EU, and hurt our alliances in the Asian union that seems to be forming, and once we're given disparate terror cells a reason to unite.

We may be able to do whatever we want militarily, but we still need to trade with these countries. We need these countries to invest in America, just as we need to invest in them.

We may not need the UN, but we do need the countries that make up the UN.

I'm eating dinner now, so I'll just say one thing:

We may not need the UN, but we do need the countries that make up the UN.

We actually have most of the countries in the U.N. (at least in the security council) on our side. Hence, the letter of support signed by 8 of the nations on the security council (and later joined by others).

We actually have support from something like 40+ nations for either fly-over rights or the rights to place troops on their soil. France, Germany, and Russia certainly seem to be in the minority. And we've covered a lot of their ulterior motives here before...

Ok, back to dinner. Oh, and I don't really consider the Pope a valid moral compass in these matters

Hence, the letter of support signed by 8 of the nations on the security council (and later joined by others).

I think you're mixing things up, the letter was signed by 8 european nations and not by security council members. Quite a difference. The members of the security council can be found here: http://www.un.org/Docs/scinfo.htm#MEMBERS
Right now it rather seems that 3 of the five permanent members with veto rights are, hmh, not really favoring a military action against Iraq at the moment.

But I agree, the US don't need the UN to give them a blanque cheque to go to war, they do it anyway.

Hey, thanks for the correction. Don't know why I said they were all security council members. If I wasn't in the middle of dinner I would have checked to make sure. Sorry for the error.