> Granted it may be a severe assumption to presume that he is a moron because he gives every appearance of it, but do you really think that your country _should_ be led by somebody with a below average or at most average intelligence? If your thought is that he doesn't matter in the slightest...

I was talking about the "dangerous" part. The "stupid" part of your comment was hardly worth addressing. The man is not stupid.

> And that the Taliban's opression wasn't an issue until the US was attacked.

It certainly was. The oppression of the Taliban in Afghanistan was something reasonably well understood and in the public eye here prior to the attacks, although certainly better understood after. In fact, if you go back in this very forum, there was a thread or two about it.

How concerned our government was, I'm not sure. My cautious opinion is that it was not enough of one, because we didn't appear to be doing anything about it. But I know less about the complexities of world affairs than they do, and I don't know what discussions may have occurred behind closed doors. But it was *a* concern, to be sure, and I would be quite surprised if I were to learn that we weren't doing subtle sorts of things to address the situation that would have panned out in time. *shrug* I don't know.

> I guess what bothers me about it is the fact that it's a "strike before they can strike us" rather than a "strike so as to end opressive regimes because the people there are suffering". But I think I'll go away and think on that some more.

Why is there a problem with the former? If someone holds a gun to your son's head and says, "I am going to shoot your son," what are you going to do, and why are you going to do it? Hopefully the answer to the first question is that you're going to try and stop him. Now, is the answer to the second question, "Because if I don't stop him, he'll shoot my son" or "Because if I don't stop him, he'll continue to terrorize other people"? There's nothing wrong with either answer, but if you would call the former immoral, or even LESS ethical, I'll take exception to that. I'd call the former the MORE acceptable answer.

As other people in this thread have mentioned, governments are (or should be) representatives of groups of people appointed to look out for their own interests. It's "good" if they do humanitarian sorts of things, rescuing others from oppressive regimes and taking in refugees and so forth if they can, but their primary responsibilities are to the people that appointed them.

While the oppression of the Taliban was a great concern prior to September 11th, darned right it became more of one after. So it should.