No kidding.

I recall hearing of a Time article with an account of "Dubya" wandering the halls of the West Wing early in the administration, poking his head into Condoleeza Rice's office, and saying, "F*** Saddam.  He's goin' down."

He used a horrible, devastating, unrelated terrorist attack as an excuse to do what he'd wanted to do all along:  initiate Operation: Finish What Daddy Started.  As Bill Maher once commented, "Going after the terrorists in Iraq is like losing your car keys in the garage, but looking for them in the living room because the light is better."

What is the current death toll caused by the U.S. invasion? (And not
just U.S. soldiers, god rest their souls, but allies and iraqis, too...)

Whatever it is, Al, its too high. Thats the real cost -- the lives of our brave soldiers and the innocents when it was not necessary.  Thats why my vote in 2000 haunts me.  I think I am partly responsible for the bloodshed as I helped elect the fool who got us into this mess.  If I had known then what I knew even two years later I would have voted differently. But I take responsiblity for my vote, which is why I voted differently in 2004, and why I am strongly considering Obama now.*  The cost of this ill advised war has been far greater than any sum of money.  Money can be replaced, life cannot. 

*Well that and I really like him.  Not like Mike does, but I think, if he acts as he's advertised he could help rid some of the toxicity in our politics. Thats not to say I don't think McCain could do that -- but they way you prove it is by actually listening to the minority party (which the GOP will definitely be) eventhough its not your own.  Its not assuming that they are inherently corrupt.  Obama says he'll do those things.  It gives me hope.  The other reason I like Obama as a presidential choice is because we may (finally) have the national discussion on race (and hopefully expanded to all prejudice) that we all have avoided for too long.

Of course, there's also the Lone Gunmen tv series' take on Saddam:  he was an actor hired by the Government to rattle his saber and play the villain whenever a distraction was needed.

Granted, that was just fiction.  And the pilot episode had nothing to do with trying to crash planes into the World Trade Center.  Airing in March, 2001.

(Seriously...I do know it's just fiction about conspiracy buffs.  Just an interesting concept.)

The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was an attempt to damage us badly enough so that we couldn't stop them from taking the resource rich Dutch East Indies and neighboring areas.

The cruelly pragmatic fact is that taking out Saddam served one definite thing: it kept Iraq (for the nonce) out of fundamentalist hands.  That's where Saddam served our interests.  The Taliban in Afghanistan was fueled by the lucative drug trade.  Imagine if they had oil money to wield - especially since they could wield it by not wielding it, driving prices up.

Without us invading, Saddam would have been suceeded by Uday and Qusay.  Uday, being so fucking crazy Saddam had to put him on time-out once, then kills Qusay (unless Qusay sees the writing on the wall).  Someone most likely assassinates Uday/Qusay (depending on how the first part plays out).  Then you get a civil war without us there to keep a lid on things.

In other words, we skipped to the end and inserted ourselves into the mix.  While that serves our interests, try selling THAT rationale!  Much easier to wave a bloody shirt.

So, step one: we stole the underpants, and step three is profit.  What's step two again?  How do we get the hell out of this?

What's step two again?  How do we get the hell out of this?

Thats the $64 Million question isn't it?

When you consider the son against the father, Dubya seems to have done the exact opposite of everything his father did.  Its like he was using the "Reverse-41 Playbook."  I would love to get into George H.W. Bush's mind and see what he objectively thinks of his son's administration.