>I don't think so... Israel preemptively attacked in 1967 and grabbed (won) the land.

Yes, preemptively. They new they were going to be attacked, and did something about it. Smart move.

>Fair enough. But, as you say, in the case of Kuwait the world was united in the effort.

You may not be seeing this, but the majority of Europe is behind us. Reading the press, you might think Europe is against us, but it's only France, Germany, and Belgium. Great Britain, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, etc. are with us. Besides, the biggest oxymoron is the term French Army :-).

>This time there is a large gap between what President Bush wants to do, when, and what/when the world wants to do. Now there is no doubt that President Bush and the U.S. military can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, but the question is: should they?

Yes, we should. Most of are allies are with us. The ones who aren't? Well, we can live without their support.

>To go ahead regardless of U.N. position doesn't really do much for the U.S. except to establish it firmly as the world's bully. And it certainly puts a permanent end to any credibility that the U.N. can hold in the future.

The U.N. has no credibility to start with. If we were really the bully people

>The U.N. was not created to enable (or legitimize) war. The U.N. was created in hopes of permanently ending war, by replacing guns and bombs with talk and agreement. It can't really be called "agreement" when one party says 'I'm gonna do it regardless of what you say at the U.N.'.

What the U.N. fails to understand is that some dictators, like Saddam, only understand force. He didn't allow U.N. inspectors back in his country because of diplomacy. He did it because he knew if he didn't, we were going to attack. And what about that? What did the U.N. do when Iraq kicked inspectors out in 1998? Nothing. Not a damn thing. I think that shows what kind of credibility the U.N. has.