Jediphile

It was definitely annoying in the earlier incarnations of WoD. The Storyteller game I've played most recently was Exalted, and there some of the problems were fixed. 7 was now the golden number you needed to pass in order to get a success, each and every time. However, Exalted also fixed another really annoying problem in the WoD system - if you got just one success, then all 1s (failures) were completely ignored. One big problem with the system earlier was that it sometimes wasn't in your own interest to build higher dice pools, since that just increased the chance of rolling that elusive 1 that ruined your result. I must confess, though, that I don't like the whole idea of rolling all those d10s, then counting successes, then having the opponent try to resist, then seeing how many successes got through, and then rolling damage for that number... Very cumbersome and annoying when doing combat, though I guess you can accuse me of just being infected with D&D syndrome... That said, I cannot believe that it is impossible to make a combat system that is fast and useful and yet allows many options. Heck, Storyteller's combat doesn't even allow a lot of options, but it still takes hours to go through major battles...

Except that it backfired completely. Hard 2e fanatics were never going to switch, and those of us who might have considered it couldn't be bothered because 3e just wasn't enough of an improvement - you can't have your cake and eat it too. As for weapon finesse, I doubt very much many take it, since it's just too costly. The problem with feats is that they all 'cost' the same no matter how useful or slightly practical they are. WotC just basically set the system up and then claimed they were all exactly equal in value, which is obviously absurd to anyone bothering to study those feats for a few minutes. Improved Initiative is far more useful than Weapon Finesse in any case. Add to that that you have to take Weapon Finesse for each weapon you want to use it with and the idea that it's balanced really loses touch with reality. And it seems every time someone voices criticism of stupid 3e rules, someone says to just introduce a house rule. No offense, but I only hear this argument when it concerns 3e, and I really don't understand why. What makes it okay for d20 to have flawed rules and yet have that be acceptable, since people can make their own house rules, but it's somehow not okay in other RPGs? To put it bluntly, saying "make up a house rule to fix it" sounds to me like someone knows the rule is broken and that the system is therefore flawed, but they don't really like admitting it...

Except that Lancer and myself aren't playing 3e anyway, so what's the difference? We saw that the 3-18 scale was just a cover for a calculation, and that the claim of preserving the old scale was, shall we say, less than truthful. It annoys me more that WotC claims it's the same when it's not than it would have if they'd just said that they had changed it because it worked better and that we should try to get used to it. Now the 3-18 scale has meaning only when you roll up the numbers (character creation) and nowhere else. In all other cases it's the underlying modifiers that dictate the game, while the 3-18 scale has no meaning at all.

What bothers me is that they've set it up to look like the classic D&D 3-18 stat range, but don't use it for anything but numbercrunching. It's simply just untrue to claim that the 3-18 range is preserved, when it has been completely rewritten and how the numbers themselves don't mean anything. Want to know what your modifier is? Subtract 10 from your stat and then take half of the result, rounding down any fractions - there's your modifier. Now, that being the case, why didn't they just use those numbers instead of the 3-18 range? It might take a little time for players to get used to his 17 being only 3

What I don't get is why they didn't just fix it. I've been toying the idea for the five seconds or so, when I actually considered switching to 3e, and it doesn't seem that hard to fix at all. Just drop the rule saying that Strength affects to-hit at all and instead let Dexterity modify it. If that's too harsh on warriors, there's a solution to that, too. After all, you can make an argument for hitting stronger to indicate greater chance for hurting opponent or penetrating his defenses, though not as great as the precision suggested by high Dexterity. Simply take half the Strength modifier and round it down, then use either that or the Dexterity modifier, whichever is higher, but not both. That should fix the matter quite nicely without unbalancing the game.

Yes, that's the other side of 3e for 2e vets - it's different enough to us to be annoying, but is it really that much better? As others have said, it is certainly both more streamlined and more polished, but better? Not really. It's pretty much the same old thing on new bottles, only with a few more annoying rules and with 'streamlining' that means we don't know the rules by heart anymore. So why switch indeed? The 3e players won't get this part, though. If they hear us talking like this, they might look at 2e and be horrified that we like it. I mean, we actually SUBTRACT our to-hit from the THAC0? Armor Class goes DOWN? You have to roll below your proficiency to succeed, so that low die results are good, whereas with a to-hit roll high die results are good? How utterly confusing! And why are thieves suddenly using percentile dice instead of the d20? To you and me this is all natural and second hand, but to a 3e player, it's just confusing and silly - all of the above can be done according to the same mechanic, so why make them all different? Personally, I do sort of appreciate that high die rolls aren't *always* good. There should be times when they're not, methinks, but I do see their point. That said, I have put some of these mechanics into my 2e campaign. No, I don't play 3e, I've just restructured the 3e mechanic to suit my 2e campaign in some cases. For example, THAC0 has been replaced by a 'class to-hit modifier', and AC of armors have been recalculated to go up instead of down. Want to know what the 'class to-hit modifier' or new AC of an armor is? Subtract the old value from 20 and there you go. This way I've also been able to reincorporate the "Weapon Type vs. Armor" modifiers. I mean, do you ever use them? Few did, because they were very cumbersome in 2e, but we can use them quite easily in my campaign now. How? Well, take the place mail armor. It is AC 3 with +3 to THAC0 against slashing weapons. A main problem of the Weapon Type vs. Armor list is that they were given as penalties in one edition of the 2e PHB and as a bonus in another - I have two editions of the 2e PHB, and they are exact opposite in those, because one says they should be added the THAC0 (thereby making THAC0 higher and so more difficult to hit), while another says they should be used as modifiers to the attackers to-hit roll. It all comes down to the same thing, but the fact that it's inconsistent is so annoying it's mind-boggling! Anyway, we have a plate mail armor of AC 3 with a +3 to THAC0 against slashing weapons. Now, to convert the armor, we subtract it from 20. That gives plate mail a new armor class of 17. Now how about the Weapon Type vs. Armor modifier? Well, since it's a +3 to THAC0, that means the amor is more difficult to hit for the weapon type, so it should be added the armor class, giving us AC 20 against slashing weapons. It's still AC 17 against other weapon types (piercing and bludgeoning), so I'll note it down as AC 20/17/17. Since it is always listed in the order of slashing/piercing/bludgeoning, it will be clear which numbers are which. I my campaign we did that for all the armors and wrote out the list, and we now use it without second thought. If I ask a player, "What is your AC", he'll say, "It's 23/20/20" or whatever. This way I've introduced a 3e mechanic into my 2e game and used it to repair a broken rule that nobody used, because it didn't work. But it does now. And there is no question, than it's easier to roll the die and add a bunch of number than it is to constantly have to remind myself, whether it's the die roll I need to subtract from my THAC0 or vice versa. 3e uses the same mechanic for both attacks and skills, and that is more polished and streamlined. So I have accepted that and brought it into my campaign. I've left the thief abilities on percentile, though - never saw much point in changing them - everybody understands what 80% chance to hide in shadows means...

I can see it now... "Dejarak installed on your ship early next millennium - sorry for the inconvenience. Please direct any objections to our kiosk on Coruscant." :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes, I think you're right there. A big part of the problem is that many of us have simply become so used to 2e or even 1e rules, that we find it difficult to accept that fundamental things have changed. But while 3e is more streamlined, it IS a very different game, and we all notice that. WotC made a big deal of "not slaughtering all the holy cows", but IMHO they should have gone ahead and gotten rid of all the stupid rules if they were going to change this much anyway. 3e is far more streamlined than the AD&D editions, but it is not a evolution upon those games - it's a completely different system that just tries like Hell to look a lot like 1e and 2e. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Yes, but this is actually one area where having the whole thing being streamlined is just silly. Why is the to-hit and damage modifier for Strength the same now? That makes no sense whatsoever. Besides, Strength shouldn't affect to-hit probability at all - it was stupid in the first place, so why put it in 3e? Another thing I find really annoying is that only even numbers of a stat are different - you can go from Strength 18 to 19, and it won't make any difference at all. In the days of 2e, having 19 Strength was a big deal, but now it's just a number and nothing more. Yes, it's easier to change your stats in 3e now, but it doesn't matter since they also have to change far more before you see any significant difference. Well, it's actually still there on 3e character sheets. No, I think us old 2e vets really have learned all those tables by heart, and now we find it difficult to accept that it has all changed. Suddenly the game is not what we thought it was, and we can't quite get used to it, and it's bloody annoying, and so we think "why couldn't they just keep it the way it was?" Not saying I embrace 3e, but this is one area where we must admit that we're just set in our ways, I think. One thing I really hate about 3e is new rules that were added for what doesn't seem to be any particularly good reason to me. You've mentioned Attacks of Opportunity (AoO), so I'll skip ahead. But under that heading I really hate the way spellcasting grants these to nearby enemies - it bugs the game down and keeps the spellcaster from doing what he should be doing, which is casting spells. Lots of people argued back in the day that this was reasonable because nobody can cast a spell without someone else hitting him before he finishes it, but that totally ignores how fast AD&D spells really were - those casting times actually meant something. In 2e casting a Magic Missile took 1 segment, whereas swinging a long sword took 5 segments. In 3e they said dropped the guard to cast spells invited attacks, but then they also bulldozered all over the intiative rules and conveniently removed all casting times and speed factors - foul, I say! It also makes the whole spellcasting thing pretty silly. After all, Magic Missiles is supposed to be cast during combat, isn't it? Or what about the wizard who wants to Teleport or Dimension Door to safety when things go bad? There is a reason those had casting times of 2 and 1 respectively - there was strategy in those casting times. 3e torpedoed that strategy by brutishly removing initiative modifiers at the same time - it doesn't matter now that Magic Missile or Dimension Door are supposed to be fast spells, because the rules won't allow you to cast them without letting someone with even the slowest weapon in the world get a chance to push it up your wizard's nose or wherever. It was a very ugly and unbalancing way to do it. Now, I know people will argue that spellcasters now have the ability to concentrate on spells in spite of being hurt physically. That's true, though it's not very logical. In 2e your spell was gone if someone hit you. Even if the wizard was protected by Stoneskin or similar, it was still gone, because it was the question of being hit and not whether you took damage that decided the matter. That rule was a bit cumbersome, but the 3e solution is even worse, and even more unbalanced. I'll tell you why... Take the standard low level wizard (mageling). He has no time for casting warding spells, so he is doomed if surrounded by enemies - he won't be able to concentrate on his spell when hit, and can't cast very powerful spells yet anyway. Now take the archmage. He is probably already protected by several warding spells, but even if he is surrounded, he can probably concentrate his way through most damage and still teleport to safety or whatever. So in short, the archmages are now even more powerful, while the magelings are even more puny than ever before. Trouble is that that is about the last thing we need - archmages were without doubt among the most powerful characters in the game already. We really didn't need another rule that made them even more invincible. Just the opposite with the mageling - low level wizards are babies, since they have no AC, no HP to withstand damage, and no spells yet to protect themselves with. They also don't have high concentration yet, since the rules won't allow that, and so they're even more helpless than before. That's just the wrong way around. Add to that the rule has thereby effectively forced building of the Concentration skill upon a spellcaster, and the rule has not only unbalanced the game, but also served to enforce the already restrictive class system even further by forcing any mage to build that particular skill

Yes, I found the ending of that conflict anti-climactic and half-baked. What are your thoughts regarding their relations??? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, in short, Nihilus *is* the Exile, or rather a part of the Exile. On Malachor V the Exile created a wound in the force by resisting the will of the force that dictated he/she should turn to the dark side for what he/she had done in the Mandalorian Wars. The Exile, however, refused and denied the will of the force. In doing so, however, he/she also shed the part of him/herself that had already fallen to that dark side. This 'evil self' survived by claiming the dead or near-dead body of a fallen jedi and then became Darth Nihilus (a friend or old master of the Exile would make the most sense, since the connection would be stronger). Note how Nihilus and the Exile share the ability to resist the will of the force, though that ability is said to be unique. By resisting the will of the force, the Exile simply split him/herself in two in spite of the actions that had been taken on Malachor. You might not call the Exile light side (as opposed to Nihilus being obviously dark sided), yet note how the jedi masters say that the Exile was the only jedi to ever return to face their judgment after leaving for the Mandalorian Wars. According to Revan's plans, the Exile should never have been able to do this (as per HK-47's comments about Revan 'cleaning house" on Malachor V), and yet the Exile resisted this fate. So the Exile is not whole, which explains the wound in the force and the need to rely on force bonds to other in order to gain access to the force. The Exile's fate was to turn to the dark side, and therefore the force powers have remained with the side that became Nihilus. For the Exile to become whole, he/she must embrace the side that he/she denied on Malachor V. However, since that side is Nihilus, this will mean turning to the dark side. Think of it as someone who denies someting, but still carries it with him. As time passes, it gets worse and becomes a mental disorder. Finally it begins to manifest itself until it can no longer be denied. Since Nihilus was born from a conflict with the force itself, he/she (it?) is far more powerful, and by the time KotOR2 begins, the Exile has been denying his/her other self for almost a decade - no wonder Nihilus has grown powerful! Besides, it's an excellent excuse for having Nihilus return in KotOR3

Agreed. I want levels, but only for my skills!

Well, yes, an excellent GM can turn any horribly flawed rpg-system into pure gold. The problem in d20 is that it is so geared towards hack'n slash and dungeon-crawls, that it becomes difficult to use it for something else. I miss the idea of optional disadvantages, for example (they were there in 2e Player Option rules), since that's one thing that helps to give the characters, welll, character... I'd probably want to play with a good GM in most campaigns too, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't think twice, when I heard we'd be played a d20 system. A successful campaign is impossible without a good GM. I pride myself on being a good GM for being able to run a campaign for ten years and counting in spite of playing 2e. Some of the players have tried more advanced systems, such as Vampire or GURPS, and early on there were moaning about the very simplistic and utterly unrealistic and ancient principles of 2e. But once we got past that and became involved with the game, we didn't think about it so more. It does annoy me as a GM, however, but I have to stick with it for now, since converting the PCs to a better system is impossible - I'll never be able to do the characters justice, not even in 3e. Ah, yes - house rules. I'll tell you exactly why house rules are a mixed blessing, because I have made extensive house rules myself. Changing a few rules is fine, but the trouble with it is, that rules should be consistent. I was a player in a campaign, where the GM altered the rules without telling us about it. We played a mix between 1e and 2e, but he didn't write it down, so we had no idea what was changed and what wasn't. He let his rulings be on the whim, since he couldn't be bothered to write the changes down, and so there were times when a situation was resolved one way one week and another way the next. I remember seeing other players getting certain results in specific situations, but when I tried the exact same thing in the exact same way, my results were different. That's not okay. So when began my own campaign, I dicided that I would be consistent - if I changed rules, I would write it down and make these available to the players, so that they could see for themselves what had changed and how things would be resolved. To that end, I began writing a document in Word, and every time I changed something, that document became longer. As we speak, this document is now 43 pages long. Hasn't changed much in the last few years, but still. That's a lot for players to go through, and it's tightly written in order preserve space. I have little doubt it would fill twice as much or more if published. A friend of mine once joked about how I should published as the 'Complete Book of House Rules' Since we play 2e Player Option, these house rules are also pretty annoying. I mean, if you have to look up something, then you begin in the PHB. Then you check in any relevant Player Option book (Combat & Tactics, Skills & Powers, Spells & Magic, or High-Level Campaigns) to see if there are revisions, and then you finally check my house rules for final revisions... That's a lot, and several of my players have given up looking through it all, and instead just ask me. Of course, they could just blindly be trusting my judgment, knowing that I'll get my way in any event, but somehow I doubt it Truly, throwing out all my old house rules was a major reason why I looked forward to 3e - finally all the old and antiquated stuff was going to be updated, it was going to be in one book, and I could do with very few house rules... Oh my how I was mistaken Actually I'm considering doing my own system and have been working on it for a while. It's met with trouble, however, since there are areas that I find it difficult to approach. A main one is combat. I want the system to be relatively fluid and usable, but I also want combat to be far more strategic and have better options than in D&D, so that's a real tall order. Besides, it's all going to look a lot like GURPS in many areas, so I've considered just using GURPS instead. It's not without it's own flaws, but they are few enough that I can overlook it.

Nobody's tried it, so that's a poor argument. Take an asperin and call me in the morning... I am. I'm disagreeing. There is a certain "let's just drop the bomb and be done with it"-mentality going on, as if peace is somehow impossible. I will not support that. Yes, I showed trued cowardice by speaking my mind here and sticking with it... " That's only a valid argument if everyone who has tried it "first-hand", as you put it, agree with you. That is not the case, however. No, I don't, but since you do it's interesting that you don't share that wisdom with all us dumb saps out here. Well, you claimed that my position wouldn't save me from shrapnel, and I responded that things in Iraq don't exactly suggest that your aggreesive view is helping any either. But then you don't seem to like that perspective either, so... Yes, because they are not beyond understanding. However, you are determined that they are just evil people of evil convictions and doing things for evil reasons that we cannot ever understand, so let's not even try and instead just kill them... Not quite as bad a position as the extremists themselves, but still pretty far gone - it's becoming clear that arguing with you is about as hopeless as arguing with the terrorists themselves, which should tell you something. You say that your position will create more terrorists, but that they won't be able to retaliate. And then you accuse me of contradiction? Thanks. I needed a laugh, and that was pretty good

Oh, so no point in pursuing it I guess... I'm glad I'm not quite that defeatist... I don't agree with that position. The US has had bases in many other countries without being suspected of enforcing totalitarian regimes, so I don't see why Saudi Arabia would be such a special case. Don't accuse me of imperialist tendencies, when I've actually criticized US behavior. And what's with all the "you" - I'm not even an american! But if you cannot accept the mere possibility that I might support change for idealistic reasons over convenient ones, then you're beyond reasoning, since anything I say will automatically be vowen into the lie of self-supporting arguments that you seem to impose in me. In that case there is no point in arguing, since you are clearly seeing anything I say as coming from a bias that you must oppose, no matter what I say.

Not saying Russia and France don't share the responsibility. They do for their part. And as has already been said, the sanctions were hurting Iraqi civilians more than they were hurting Saddam - if he needed the money for his weapons program, then he was perfectly willing to take the food out of his people's mouthes and let the all starve to death... But there is enough blame for the rest of us as well. For example, Reagan removed Iraq from the list of terrorist countries over the objection of congress in 1982, and in 1983 Iraq got about 5 billion in unreported loans through certain banks (apparently from Italy), which was then promptly used to equipment for Iraq's missile, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs with the approval of the US government. Point being that the west either supported the wrong side or did nothing. We were perfectly content to let Saddam butcher whomever he pleased. So long as it was in our own interests, we really couldn't care less...

Discovering life on other planets is a good start. It will explode the human idea of self importance for one thing. As well as give religion a bloody nose which is never a bad thing. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Amen!

I've enjoyed playing Exalted myself, but I wouldn't say it's without its flaws, though it is certainly better than d20 to near-infinite degrees! For one thing, the difference between the usage of 'freebie points' during character creation and the use of xp during the actual game brings about an awful lot of min/maxing... I don't find min/maxing bad in general, but we don't want the rules to encourage it. Cumbersome though GURPS might be, this is one area where it is better, since there is no "creation vs. play" conflict of point-usage - the costs during character creation are exactly the same as during play in GURPS, since you use the same character points in both instances. A very easy solution that many games forget. d20 doesn't use character creation with point-costs, but that's not to say it doesn't have flaws there. No, one thing I really dislike in d20 is the way you must effectively decide your entire progression of abilities and particularly feats, if you're going to make the most of the rules. While planning ahead should always be rewarded in RPGs (and always will be), I don't need the system to encourage a philosophy, where I'm actually rewarded for effectively deciding my character's progression through levels 1 to 20+ during character creation. In d20 you earn xp and then buy whatever you want when advancing. I'd much rather have the skills you actually used in the last adventure improve, as they did in 5th edition Call of Cthulhu. Why should my wizard get better at hitting a troll with his staff, if all ever does is to lob spells at the monsters, and hasn't used his staff once in the last seven adventures? Peculiar idea...

You're completely ignoring my point that true democracy must always come from the will of the people. I dare say we would hear of it if US troops enforced the reign of the current rulers, but that just doesn't happen. Besides, democracy isn't the same as the dictatorship of the majority - it also means respect for the individual and the acceptance of certain principles. Osama bin Laden has long since demonstrated that he has no respect for any democratic principles. You're assuming rather a lot from the US presence in Saudi Arabia, and far more than I can support. For one thing, I think the US will pull its troops out within the next couple of years, since the political climate there isn't exactly favorable. Sadly you might be right there, but I'm not about to accuse the US of being guilty for doing something it has not yet done. I might suspect it to happen in a scenario like what you describe, but it hasn't come to pass, so there can be no blame, and it might not happen at all. If you want to accuse the US of something, then look at history instead - there are more than enough examples to choose from there. Again, you could be right, but I'm not about to accuse the US of imperialist tendencies in the future on the basis of possibilities or even probability. I still have enough faith that the US might change this sort of policy for something that shows greater respect for other countries. I will not abandon that hope so easily even if the reasons you give are compelling reasons. Worked for most democratic nations in the world...

Iraq's economy was shattered by the war with Iran. If we had really hated Saddam so much at the time, then that would have been a good time to go in and throw him out. We didn't. We decided to support him with weapons and money instead. Oh, and Saddam was already pursuing WMDs in the 70s. His nuclear potential was devastated by the Israeli, however, while we did squat about it...

I see that from this perspective.....the US sees democracy good only if it benefits their goals, when not, then they support various authocratic regimes that do so. They support the current regime in S.Arabia only because it's in their interest, mind the fact that S.Arabia is one of the most anti-democratic states in the Middle East and it terrorisis those of their citizens that don't act and live accordingly with their laws. Why not elections? Because that would endanger the flow of Saudi oil to the US, that would probably also mean they had to pull out their military facilities in S.Arabia. And why would they remove the present regime when they put most of their money in US banks - the Saudi have 1000 billion $ ( not kidding)stashed in US banks. Imagine that someone wins elections in S.Arabia and decides to cash out that amount, the US would be on the edge of financial chaos. MONEY BEFORE HUMAN LIVES, DEMOCRACY and FREEDOM The main policy of the US, if otherwise, they wouldn't be the superpower they are today. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Oh, come on - that's not what he said. His point was simply that Saudi Arabia doesn't seem to be ready for democracy, and it's not really a bad point either. It's probably why things aren't going on well in Iraq. The US refused to look at Iraq from an evolutionary point of view, and just assumed that the people would hail the americans as heroes, since they brought freedom and democracy, which is rather naive IMHO - you cannot expect to bomb a country, invade it with tanks and planes, and then expect people to greet you with open arms. The iraqis saw it as an invasion, which is probably what it was. And any promises of democracy and fair treatment was probably ignored either due to Saddam's propaganda-machine or because people remembered what happened the last time the US asked them to "rise up against the tyrant Saddam"... Besides, you cannot blame the US for any lack of democracy in Saudi Arabia - they may have bases there, but they did not install the current regime, nor do I get the impression that they are keeping it in power. If there was an uprising, the US would pull out rather than defend the king, so democracy will come to Saudi Arabia when the Saudis are ready for it and not before. Democracy must come from the will of the people in a country - you cannot create it by force. As one arab journalist said quite mockingly about the invasion: "Democratize now or we shoot!"

When I said "we" I meant the international community, not just the US. Sorry for the confusion. Surely you jest... Hopefully something will come of the peace talks this time. The trouble in the last few years was that Arafat was more concerned with keeping power to himself while being determined to fight the Israeli. Unfortunately Bush did not hold his ground, but instead let Israel do whatever it wanted. The results weren't pretty. Harsh though it may sound, I feel the best thing Arafat has done for his country in the last five years is to die, so there was room for more progressive people like Abbas to take over. Seems there is some talk of peace now, but that could still just be either or both sides stalling. I live in hope of peace...

The west certainly kept Saddam in power and helped him become the tyrant that everybody knows and loves - we were perfectly content to give him weapons and equipment as long as he fought Iran. I've seen old footage of Rumsfeld sitting in Saddam's palace shaking hands with him as if they were good chums. This would have been back in the 70s or 80s, I guess. So yes, we did create him. He was a bad man already, sure, but we gave him weapons and allowed him to be a monster to his neighbours and to terrorize his own people... To give a man like that weapons and then deny responsibility is absurd. The weapons that he committed those mass murders with were weapons we supplied him with. Yet people insist that we have no responsibility for that. We do, and we need to face up to it, and we also need to face that we let Saddam butcher the resistance that *we* encouraged after the first Gulf War in 91. A big part of the problem during the invasion in Iraq was that the Iraqis had not forgotten that we just sold them out and let Saddam slaughter the opposition back in 91. As long as our memories continue to be this "selective", we will be seen as playing double standards by middle-east nations.

Your wrong and Bush was wrong if he said it. Saddam used to pay members of Hamas to blow themselves up. Technically he paid the families (since you cant pay the bomber) but when your life is **** and dying gets you into your version of heaven and your family has $10,000 to spend its what you would call a hell of an incentive. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> True enough, but if that is a basis for going to war, then the US is going to be pretty busy invading an awful lot of nations. There is certainly no shortage of nasty leaders in the world doing terrible things to their own people and to others. And Saddam wasn't even the worst... Heck, he was our own creation - the west supported him with weapons and money, when we wanted someone to fight Iran. We may not have put him in power, but we certainly made sure he stayed there. As it has been said here, he did not just use the weapons we gave him against Iran, he also used them to terrorize his own people. And we were perfectly content to let him do so for decades...

Who's spouting propaganda now? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I spout propaganda when I defend my democratic right to free speech and my own opinion? Oh, I'll fight for my way of life if and when it comes to that. I just don't agree with you that I must necessarily shed blood in order to do so. And I will question governments who torture captives for information - that is *not* my way of life! Oh, and I have reported you to the moderator for all the good it'll do - calling me names is not permissible, and you won't see me calling you one. That might be, but hopefully there are people around me who stop me from acting out of revenge in such a case, since I would then hardly be in a frame of mind to make rational decisions. And which governments are those? Afghanistan has already been taken care of - and for the record, I supported that. Iraq, however, had nothing to do with terrorism, as Bush has admitted *after* the war... Nor does war - soldiers are dying on a daily basis in Iraq in case you didn't know... I wouldn't call a terrorist rational, but then I wouldn't call a serial killer rational either, and yet the police catch those by making profiles. That suggests they are not beyond any form of understanding, in which case the same could be true for terrorists. We don't hear about that, though. I'm not saying we should just do nothing against terrorism, but we should be wary of what it is we do and take care that we find the guilty people instead of committing acts of horrible injustice in our zeal to hav revenge. It's really just the principle of not giving in to terrorists, since that just encourages more of the same. If they see us changing our way of life and shredding our civil rights, then we are giving in. If we mobilize and become aggressive, then we are giving in. If we stay firm, they'll see that they can do whatever and we won't budge, so why bother...

Yes, it is. If the US and the Brits didn't involved themselves in the Middle East after World War 2 in forming Israel and pretty much left those people ALONE. We wouldn't be in this mess now. We need to mind our own store and not interfere with others. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Well, not that I disagree entirely, but I don't think we can avoid getting involved in the long run. There are atrocities going on in the Darfur region of Sudan right now, and we need to get involved there too. The problem is that if you go back and read a little objective history, you'll see that Israel wasn't just formed out of the kindness of someone's hearts. The leaders of Israel at the time did pretty nasty things to the Palestinians. It's just that since western nations supported Israel after WW2, we tend to want to see that in a better light than it really was. We want to see the world in all black and white. The trouble is that the world isn't populated only by heroes and demons - it's populated by real people who are almost exclusively somewhere in between, and they all have reasons for what they do. I cannot blame the Palestinians for wanting to be free of the Israeli. I do not support Palestinian suicide bombers, but I also do not support Israel bombing a house and killing 14 or so children just to get one man, and then basically just shrug and say that you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs... And I've seen parents of Israeli children killed by Palestinian suicide bombers say that *they* understand why they do it on 60 Minutes! That's makes far more of an impression on me than the self-serving arguments of any government!

Now you're embracing the US position of "well, what does it matter that there weren't any WMDs - Saddam was a bad man doing horrible things, so who cares?". Well, that's not what Powell told the UN before the war. Nobody talked about chemical weapons or mass graves back then, no, it was WMDs and nothing less, and it was all over the headlines. To just shrug now and say "well, so what" is to accept lies and misinformation because it's more convenient than admitting something was done under pretense. Now, I'm not blaming anyone here. Heck, I voted for a government that supported that war. There has since been another election, however, and I decided that I could not support that government with my vote again. That they wanted to do something about Saddam is one thing - that I might have accepted - but they lied about the reasons, and I will not be lied to and then accept those lies because I don't like admitting that I was mislead. They did mislead me, and it has cost them my vote! And if the US cared so much for the admittedly poor people murdered under Saddam Hussein's regime, then why did the US just pull out of Iraq and let Saddam slaughter the resistance against him during the first war in 91? That was a just war IMHO, but the fact that the alliance of the time (and I'm not just blaming the US, because the other nations involved are just as much to blame) just pulled out and let Saddam butcher the opposition in Iraq (an opposition that *we* had encouraged, I might add) has also been conveniently forgotten - who do you think are in those mass graves you mention? It's the people our nations incited to rise against Saddam, but whom we then abandoned and allowed Saddam to murder back then... I don't support the terrorists, but it's about time we faced up to our own responsibility in that mess - we're not beyond blame!