Well, Mike, you might have an argument there, if "the U.N. weapons inspectors have yet to find any evidence of threatening weapons or terrorist ties," was anywhere near being true.

In fact, although I'm sure it's possible that"all[you] ever see is how the U.N. weapons inspectors have yet to find any evidence of threatening weapons or terrorist ties,"you're being really, seriously, deeply misinformed. There's loads of evidence, everywhere, about the huge array of weapons Hussein holds - information that came up in 1990-91, whose veracity was redoubledduring the last weapons-inspection-go-round wewent throughin 1998, and is yet still being amplified by the lies and bullshit being shoveled to us right now by the Iraqi government.

UNSCOM found VX gas there in 1991, then again in 1996, raw materials for the gas in 98.One of Saddam's nephews (or sons) defected in 1995 and gave us a huge amount of information on some sort of wide-ranged weapons program. Saddam used chemical weapons in 1988, and then denied the existence of any huge facilities producing those weapons basically right up until wedestroyedone of hishuge biological weapons factory in 1996. He's lied continuously, over and over again, every time we go through this weapons inspection bullshit - then we get close to attacking him (something Clinton almost did in 1998). Pacifist fuck-ups thencause a fuss, and we go back to trying to inspect for weapons again.

We know he has SCUDs, we know he has biological weapons, and so on - most of the left, including the NYTimes, isn't stupid enough to deny all this.

Generally, arguments from the ultra-left against the war tend to fall into a few groups:

1.) War is Always Wrong, to which we can respond "of course it's not always wrong, you stupid fuck, I don't even need to give you proof, grow up."

2.) Bush is a Cowboy who loves his oil, so even though Iraq is evil, it's no more evil than a bunch of other evil places (who the US might have supported at some point!?!?!!), he's just doing this because he wants oil and Americans are moronic SUV driving cowboys! They're hypocrites, so how can they justify doing anything regarding this situation? That's about the level of clarity of most arguments made against the war on Iraq. I hardly know where to start, but, I guess you could make the initial argument that two wrongs don't make a right, and that even if we did support the wrong side 20 years ago, we shouldn't force ourselves to continue supporting that side now. Yes, there's loads of evil in the world - if we can't destroy all the evil in the world in one fell swoop, does that mean we should do nothing? If we support a lesser evil (like the Taliban) because it will help us end an evil that could destroy the world (Communism), we're making a difficult, but correct choice, aren't we? So, yes, yes, it's not hypocritical to attack Iraq, even though we supported them at some point and even though other evils exist.

3.) But what about the oil and your SUVs?!! Bush is from Texas and Texans love oil!1!!! Okay...look. Initially, what do you think a war is going to do to gas/oil prices - it's going to send them shooting skyward, of course - simple, right? So,this oil-snatching war of ours first rewards us with highergas prices throughout and past the end of the campaign.

Then,once Iraq's been dealt with, how is Bush's Texan constituency of evil oil-derrick-owners going to benefit from MORE OIL being shifted into the marketplace - which is what will happen when Saddam is deposed. Oil goes up, prices go down. Say it with me now, Oil goes up, prices go down. There will be more oil in the world market, and more oil will be coming from Iraq, and not from that Texan constituency. The Texans will sell less oil for less money. Also, Iraq's oil money won't be going into the pockets of Sheik Al-Djabouti, a Gucci wearing 23 year old Iraqi who drives specially modified Ferrari station wagons, it'll be going directly into the economy and into the hands of real Iraqis.

So, now, the world's got more oil. Who is it going to benefit most - the millions of Americans who don't really give a damn about gas prices because we can drive our SUVs and pay less than $2 a gallon, or the millions of Europeans who have to ride around in 70mpg miniaturized deathboxes because 'petrol' costs them 5e a liter? OUR GAS IS CHEAP - what the fuck do we need more oil for? It's the Europeans that are taking it from behind at the pump.

4.) Americans are just colonialist cowboy morons who want to rule the world and they don't even like soccer and they love the Jews and their taxes are too low and Bush wants to kill everyone and how can they do anything when they execute people and blah blah blah whine whine fuck shit ass whine crap... and so on.

These anti-war people are idiots, talking about waiting for a "smoking gun" with a straight face? Guns smoke when they've just had bullets fired out of them - when someone's already been shot. What kind of smoking gun do they want- a smoking launch pad that's just released a VX filled SCUD headed straight at Israel, or Istanbul? A smoking crater in D.C.? The whole point of this stuff, losing American lives, is to avoid a fuckingsmoking gun. We don't wait until people die to treat them for cancer, and we aren't going to wait until Hussein massacres a bunch of people to "treat" him, either.

I dunno what to suggest that you read, since I read the NY Times too, and I've seen them mention evidence of weapons lots of times.

Stone