[Jamo]

I disagree with your analysis of the post-9/11 Saddam. Think about it for a moment. Even after we kicked the high holy hell out of the Taliban and were geared up in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean, he still refused to back down and continued to gear up. He continued to phuk around with the UN inspectors. He gained strength by watching our allies stare at their shoes while they dicked around and kept pushing us to keep talking. He played the same game Hitler did for the five years leading up to the invasion of Poland. He never thought Bush would follow through. Why should he...Clinton never did. The threat of force relied upon since the early 90s had run its course. I don't think he feared Bush at all. Even if he did, he relied on France and Russia to slow things down. Note that North Korea played the same gambit until China got on board with us.

You say he was contained. Like Sudan is contained? Like Somalia was contained? Like Nazi Germany was contained? Does it not bother you in the least that within that relm of containment, it was literally hell on earth? Once he could obliterate any and all opposition within his borders, like Hitler, he would find his borders once again too confining. Do we wait for a regional war and the economic ruin it would bring to us, and acts of terrorism extending thousands of miles away to our own cities, or do we simply say enough is phuking enough given his proven track record? What good does it do to take out the Taliban and leave this basturd standing?

Tell you the truth, I place more trust in the damn Persians to be the stabilizing regional power than this crazy basturd and his crazier sons.

Leaders like Saddam (which constitute the "state" in such a tribal atmosphere, not the people who have little chance to control their own destiny) are the building blocks of international anarchy...there are no checks and balances for them internally. They can only be brought to bear from external sources...other regional powers, or, indeed, superpowers, of which only one remains.

In the future, the bilateral control we were a part of with the USSR may well be replaced with a Europe of single thought, with a China which is part of the global economy and with regional checks and balances in Latin America, Africa, etc. But this is right here, right now.

BTW, we do NOT have the responsibility to be consistent...that, my friend, is a fool's game. You play chess? Do you play the same game every time? I sure as hell don't. I don't make my case the same phuking way trial after trial either. I would like to think the leaders of my country don't act in such a mundane fashion that other nations think they know us. Thank god we elect our leaders and have change ups every few years. Let the rest of the basturds on this globe wonder what we're going to do next (presuming, of course, we never elect another Carter).

Hitler was even less prepared...you need to look at the whole board, not just the squares in front of you.

Sorry, but as a general making war, Powell did a fine damn job. As the representative of our country to the world, he turned out to be a POS. He failed to make our case to the other powers and get them to believe in us. He's no Ben Franklin.