[Overpaid Slacker]

red ufo -- No, it's not illegal to use dollar diplomacy. Yes, it is illegal to do so under the auspices of the UN Oil-for-Food, essentially robbing your country for your personal gain. Hussein was not Iraq, he was its dictator. He did not have personal title to the oil fields but used them to bolster his own regime and purchase influence. He stole from his country; he has no more right to use Iraqi oil and its proceeds to keep his personal dynasty in power than W does to seize all the oil in the US and put it to use for his personal gain.

At the end of the day, that's not the point I'm particularly concerned with, however -- it's those jaw-droppingly naive fools who would've had the US not act b/c of the censure of France -- who was essentially bought by Iraq. Sounds like you might be one of them, since more than 30 nations is not a "coalition" to you w/o France.

"The US shouldn't act w/o a 'real' or 'valid' coalition" -- all that crap meant, essentially, was we could not act without France (and to a lesser extent Germany) agreeing with us. France was not about to agree with us, whatever the stakes were, b/c they'd been bought, so it may well be the most stupid tenet of anti-Iraq war folks ever. And they should have to stare it in the face, admit they were duped and so offbase they were not even wrong!

And then, maybe next time one of these globalist, multi-culti big thinkers has an opinion like this, they can STFU for once.

JP