Iraq War discussion continued:

Steve responds to yours truly:

"Look how long it took us to fix Germany & Japan after the end of WWII."

And therein lies part of my problem. There is no constitutional authority for our government to "fix" any other country. Once again, if we really wanted to make a dent in the abilities of Al Qaeda, Hamas, et al to commit terrorist acts, Iraq was about the last country we needed to invade. Hussein and his Baathists were unabashed socialists. They had no tolerance for the religious zealotry of the jihadists. Their aid and comfort were merely along the lines of, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend." If we were conviced that Hussein was a threat, there were any number of ways to take him out without invading the country. Let's face it, Bush wanted to humiliate Hussein for the way he treated us, in particular the way he treated his Dad. Unfortunately for him, saving face and scoring points on the geo-political landscape isn't one of those activities allowed the executive by our constitution. Of course, Bush has shown repeatedly that he, like Clinton before him, views the constitution as a means to and end which should be ignored whenever it becomes inconvenient.