Saddam Husein was never our problem. He never bothered us or any of our allies.

Kuwait may have something to say to that.

And here we have in a nutshell, what III really thinks of America.

So, you speak for America?

They are loosely coupled by ancient inter-tribal loyalties, a variant of Islam and some form of Sharia, and they all seem to have a plentiful supply of AK-47s, RPGs, ammo, and explosives. The Brits managed to hold some of it together, sort of, for 40 years or so, but in the end, tucked their tails and ran.

We appear to be following the Brit's pattern, only much faster, possibly because we tried to instill some form of democracy into the tribal mishmash without first fully conquering the entire lot, and then setting up a viable (only mildly corruptible) administration and civil service. We are out of Iraq in 2011-2012, and one wonders how long after that the Iraqi government falls apart, to the delight and support of Iran.

This leaves a lot of open questions to ponder:

1. Do we go back in to support Iraq against Iran?
2. Do we have to defend little Kuwait once more against the big guys above them?
3. Will we allow Saudi Arabia to be overrun by some alliance of Iran, Syria, Palestine, Iraq(?), or whomever?
4. Will we defend Israel against the alignment of nations against it?
5. Will we allow Nuclear Weapons in the hands of Iran?
6. What would we do if Iran torched off four or five nukes in Israel, virtually wiping it off the map?
7. If our some 16% of oil imports are cut off from the ME overnight, what would we do about it?

One can dream up many scary scenarios that could come about because we might be essentially shoved out of the ME militarily, not by combat defeat, but by the twin disasters of internal US liberal/socialist politics and an empty treasury.

High-sounding phrases about getting along together may end up instead being we bowing our heads and accepting others' dictates.

Men have died so idiots like that can express their faulty opinions openly. Too bad.

And here we have in a nutshell, what III really thinks of America. It is too bad people have the right to disagree with him.

Bubba, you are closer to ol' Saddam than you realize...

Second, and more importantly, "winning" is defined by achieving political objectives. By all their own announced goals, al Qaeda is further from doing that than they were in 2001.

So we're basing our measure of success on the insane ramblings of our lunatic enemies? Lovely.

....Saddam Hussein. After all it was a mistake to remove him from power.

Saddam Husein was never our problem. He never bothered us or any of our allies.

If his goal was to control the middle eastern oil fields well then so what? It doesn't matter who we buy oil from. And if refused to sell us oil, again, so what? Let him choke on it long enough and he'd start selling again.

One thing we need to do is move swiftly back to the rule of law in this country.

Hear hear!

The idea that the president should be allowed to do anything he wants to the citizens in the name of protecting the Homeland is music to fascist ears.

There are some instances where military force is clearly called for. Attacking Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and deposing the Taliban was one.

At the time I agreed. But now I see it was a mistake. It doesn't appear that we can keep the Taliban down at any reasonable price. It does appear that we could have gotten bin Laden and his group--which is a separate, if somewhat overlapping group than the Taliban--at one point, years ago. In hindsight that's what we should have limited ourselves to. Not that I blame anybody for failing to understand that, I certainly didn't understand that at the time. I didn't even know that Afghanistan has more people than Iraq. But we can't take and hold the entire country with anything less than a vietnam-sized effort, another decade, and thousands of US dead. If that even worked in the end. I don't think that's worth it. They made the cost too high for the British occupation, they made the cost too high for the Russian occupation, and now they'll make the cost too high for the American occupation. We need to realize that and drop the goal of occupation. Trying to get the best Intel we can and taking out the rather tiny terrorist groups is the best strategy.

I do think he's wrong, though, about a US role in the peace process. In fact, I think that the only way you might ultimately end up with a Palestinian and Israeli state existing side-by-side without Lebanon-style bickering and small conflicts is if there is a force interposed between them.

It was the correct strategy.

It had some good points and some bad points. There were implementation issues. Welcome to the real world.

There are some instances where military force is clearly called for. Attacking Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and deposing the Taliban was one.

Fooling ourselves into thinking we can ride in on magic ponies and reshape ancient cultures to our liking is not serving us. Invading Iraq was a vast mistake.

Does law enforcement have a role? Sure. But it is not "the answer". There is no single answer. One thing we need to do is move swiftly back to the rule of law in this country. We need to close Gitmo, ASAP. It is a terrorist recruiting poster.

We need to take a harder look at understanding the people we are fighting. Just reading Sun-Tzu and applying some of those lessons would take us a long way.

Sun Tzu taught his men to "know your enemy" before going into battle. For if "you know your enemy and know yourself," he wrote, "you need not fear the result of a hundred battles." But, Sun Tzu warned, "If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat."

By implementing the wrong strategy (unilateral military action instead of international law enforcement) the Bush administration may have disrupted some organized terrorist cells for a short while but clearly lost ground to the terrorist recruiting and broadening of the base.

It was the correct strategy.
As Pakistan's current situation points up so very well, law enforcement i these situations is of questionable value since the law enforcers are of questionable loyalty and varied motivations... which usually do not mesh with with the people writing the laws or calling for them to be enforced.

I'll write up my affirmative case shortly with some additional details.