My problem with the common dismissal of Al Jazeera as a propaganda network is that it betrays a lack of perspective that offends me utterly. I can deal with conservatives and liberals equally well, what I can't deal with is people who can't get beyond their own biases. For example, I'm amazed by people who think it's perfectly fine for us to detain people captured in Afghanistan as "unlawful combatants" rather than as prisoners of war, but who howl with outrage when Iraqis don't treat our captured soldiers properly under the Geneva Convention. Our soldiers should be accorded the rights of prisoners of war but so too should we honor the convention even when it doesn't suit us.

The inability to step outside one's own political outlook, or nationality, or race, or gender and look at the big picture from other perspectives is an intellectual flaw that I find to be fatal. Everyone comes at every issue with biases, I'm a liberal white male who grew up in a small town in Texas, and that background certainly colors my thoughts on pretty much everything. However, I pride myself on my ability to compensate for those factors and look at a situation from the perspective of other people, although I'm obviously far from perfect.

Did you know that the US government is spending millions of dollars to launch a pro-American satellite television network? Robert Satloff argues that this is a bad idea. I just find it ironic that the same people who oppose spending money to provide intelligent news and entertainment to Americans via PBS and NPR now want to do so for people who speak Arabic.

What I want to know, however, is this. What are the differences between Congo and Iraq? Why is the American invasion of Iraq called "Operation Iraqi Freedom"? If the war in Iraq is really about liberation then why don't we save these people in Congo, too? I mean, they're being hacked to death with machetes.

PeaceNik: Why did you say we are we invading Iraq?

WarMonger: We are invading Iraq because...

The CIA has no credible evidence that the government of Syria has had a role in the shipment of night-vision goggles and other military equipment to Iraq, according to an administration official familiar with U.S. intelligence in the region.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last Friday suggested that Syria was responsible for the shipment to Iraq of defense-related goods, including the goggles, and warned that the United States considered "such trafficking as hostile acts and would hold the Syrian government accountable." Syria quickly denied the accusation.

And the administration official yesterday said that while military goods, including goggles, have been smuggled through Syria into Iraq for many years, "It's not necessarily with the knowledge, consent or approval of the Syrian government."

"It's not a new phenomenon," he said, "and it's not clear it has the Syrian government's imprimatur."

At the same time, he said, military goods also have been shipped into Iraq, in violation of UN sanctions, from border countries much more aligned with the U.S. government, including Turkey and Jordan.

A spokesman in Rumsfeld's office said yesterday, "I'm going to leave his comments stand where they are."