"Rebooku you really are a pessimist." No, I'm very optimistic about the small chance someone will make a clear argument, without contradictions and failings, that will convince me this invasion and occupation is not a strategic mistake. "It is inappropriate to call the US an imperial power" Technically, I agree. We just don't have a really good name for the type of hegemony we are seeking. "Iraq wanted to export more oil, and the easy to make that happen was to drop the restrictions of its export." No that does not contradict the fact that we want the oil on the market, it is simply the terms under which we want it on the market. The problem with sanctions is that they cut two ways, and we were tired of the back edge of that sword. What, you wanted to give all that extra oil money to Saddam? Saddam was not very dangerous to us, unless he had huge sums of disposable income (lots bigger than he had under sanctions). "Why don't you keep it simple. Iraq invaded Kuwait." Keep it so simple you forget the facts that that was 12 years earlier, and he no longer possessed the ability to do so again? As I said, I'm optimistic thyuat someone will make a good logical argument, I just have read one yet.

"Thank You Oh Lord that Rebooku does NOT have any influence on US strategy. Ame" Ahh, maybe you misspelled that last word and meant to end it with an "i". That would make the discussion more friendly, even if we disagree. But, let's suppose you didn't? Does this mean you DO have influence over our policies? If the Marine Capt engaged to my niece doesn't come back from Falluja, that yours is the face my niece should spit in?

Thomas Friedman, noted pulitizer prize writer for the NY Times,and an expert of the Middle East, was interviewed in 2003 by Tim Russert, where he makes the simple claim that we invaded Iraq because we could. We NEEDED to show the arabs that we will NOT tolerate attacks on our way of life and culture, and by going to the heart of the Arab world - punching them in the nose, so to speak - it shows the Arabs that any and all behavior will NOT BE TOLERATED and punished in the extreme. Here is the article leading up to the interview: America invaded Iraq because it could June 6 2003 The real weapons are angry, humiliated young Arabs and Muslims in failed Arab states, writes Thomas L. Friedman. The failure of the George Bush Administration to produce any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq is becoming a big, big story. But is it the real story we should be concerned with? No. It was the wrong issue before the war, and it's the wrong issue now. Why? Because there were actually four reasons for this war: the real reason, the right reason, the moral reason and the stated reason. The "real reason" for this war, which was never stated, was that after September 11 America needed to hit someone in the Arab-Muslim world. Afghanistan wasn't enough because a terrorism bubble had built up over there - a bubble that posed a real threat to the open societies of the West and needed to be punctured. This terrorism bubble said that ramming planes into the World Trade Centre was OK, having Muslim preachers say it was OK was OK, having state-run newspapers call people who did such things "martyrs" was OK, and allowing Muslim charities to raise money for such "martyrs" was OK. Not only was all this seen as OK, there was a feeling among radical Muslims that suicide bombing would level the balance of power between the Arab world and the West, because America had gone soft and their activists were ready to die. The only way to puncture that bubble was for American soldiers to go into the heart of the Arab-Muslim world, house to house, and make clear that Americans are ready to kill, and to die, to prevent their open society from being undermined by this terrorism bubble. Smashing Saudi Arabia or Syria would have been fine. But America hit Saddam Hussein for one simple reason: because it could, and because he deserved it and because he was right in the heart of that world. And don't believe the nonsense that this had no effect. Every neighbouring government - and 98 per cent of terrorism is about what governments let happen - got the message. If you talk to US soldiers in Iraq they will tell you this is what the war was about. The "right reason" for this war was the need to go into partnership with Iraqis, post-Saddam, to build a progressive Arab regime. Because the real weapons of mass destruction that threaten the West were never Saddam's missiles. The real weapons that threaten us are the growing number of angry, humiliated young Arabs and Muslims who are produced by failed or failing Arab states - young people who hate America more than they love life. Helping to build a decent Iraq as a model for others - and solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - are the necessary steps for defusing the ideas of mass destruction, which are what really threaten us. The "moral reason" for the war was that Saddam's regime was an engine of mass destruction and genocide that had killed thousands of his own people, and neighbours, and needed to be stopped. But because the Bush team never dared to spell out the real reason for the war, and (wrongly) felt that it could never win public or world support for the right reason and the moral reason, it opted for the stated reason: the notion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that posed an immediate threat to America. I argued before the war that Saddam posed no such threat to America, and had no links with al-Qaeda, and that Bush couldn't take his nation to war "on the wings of a lie". I argued that Bush should fight this war for the right reasons and the moral reasons. But he stuck with this WMD argument for PR reasons. Once the war was over and I saw the mass graves and the true extent of Saddam's genocidal evil, my view was that Bush did not need to find any WMDs to justify the war for me. I still feel that way. But I have to admit that I've always been fighting my own war in Iraq. Bush took America into his war. And if it turns out he fabricated the evidence for his war (which I wouldn't conclude yet), that would badly damage America and be a very serious matter. But my ultimate point is this: finding Iraq's WMDs is necessary to preserve the credibility of the Bush team, America's neo-conservatives, Tony Blair and the CIA. But rebuilding Iraq is necessary to win the war. I won't feel one whit more secure if we find Saddam's WMDs, because I never felt he would use them on the West. But I will feel terribly insecure if the West fai

In the past, whenever Americans were at war, there was a real shooting war somewhere. The so-called "War on Terror" posed the prospect of being a different kind of animal for which it might be hard to sustain public support over a long period of time. If the attention and focus of average Americans were to be sustained over a long period of time, there would have to be some semblance of a "real war" like those we had in the past. Iraq is the lighthouse bulb that was necessary to sustain us candle flies and make us feel that we were somehow involved in a real conflict that we had some power to "gauge" from the living room. What they left out was the scrap rubber collection stations that made Americans feel that they were somehow (even on Elm Street) having a personal and very positive impact on the conflict.

Is this same Thomas Friedman who argued that any two countries with McDonalds never went to war... this was before Kosovo.

"Thomas Friedman, noted pulitizer prize writer for the NY Times,and an expert of the Middle East, was interviewed in 2003 by Tim Russert, where he makes the simple claim that we invaded Iraq because we could. We NEEDED to show the arabs that we will NOT tolerate attacks on our way of life and culture, and by going to the heart of the Arab world - punching them in the nose, so to speak - it shows the Arabs..." "We needed..." is salient here. That strategy will guarantee a war without end. But, apparently the partisan thinkers needed to do this to retain political power in the U.S. As for "punching them [arabs] in the nose", just who is stupid enough to buy that tactic will make people, who are willing to kill themselves to get revenge, stop fighting? Stupid idea for the rest of us ordinary Americans, but I see it's smart for those that get money and power from it.

"The so-called "War on Terror" posed the prospect of being a different kind of animal for which it might be hard to sustain public support over a long period of time." Geez, the logic of that is stunningly oxymoronic. When the War on Terror is about terrorists that are attempting to attack us at home, we will lose interest (who care enough about their own ass?). But, when it is about punching arabs in the nose, we will gladly maintain enthusiasm for it regardless of how much blood and treasure it costs us. Yeow! That logic is so bad it's actually entertaining. If there are any strategists that believe in that I can only picture a mental image of a character in a Bugs Bunny cartoon that goes, "Duh, yup yup".

There are many similarites between this war and WW2. And this is not unlike what we had to do with Japan and Germany.The three major regimes supporting terror in the M.E. Syria, Iran and Husseins Iraq. By invading Iraq not only did we take the fight away from America and the terrible ground in Afghanistan, we separated these three regimes. In a sence we grapsed "the lowest hanging fruit". As I recall, President Bush never claimed Iraq was an imminent threat but a growing threat. Read the 9-11 report if you do not believe there was a terrorist connection. The Bush Doctrine states that we will strike terror where ever it exist. And Iraq is a very strategic place to start.

“There are many similarites between this war and WW2.” In the same way there is a similarity between WW2 and the American Revolutionary War. People killing people. Beyond that, the differences are too many to enumerate. The wars the Iraq Invasion most similarly parallels are Korea and Vietnam. In Korea, we were dealing with the after effects of the Japanese Empire. Vietnam was the after effects of the French Empire and Iraq is really the after effects of the British Empire.

WWII & Korea were wars with definable front lines. You could put GWI with WWII & Korea, but GWII mostly resembles Vietnam.