Why the madness?

Ask the madmen. Ask Saddam, Kim, Pol Pot, bin Laden, and all the rest.

At what point is enough monstrosity enough? Maybe it IS time to change the paradigm. Maybe we DO need a "World Policeman." I'm ambivalent about the entire idea...it offends my libertarian sensibilities. But so does seeing millions of human beings live in miserable slavery.

If your next door neighbor is beating his children, do you ignore him, and say it's not your business? And it's his own right to raise his kids as he sees fit?

Hell, no. You call the cops. And you do it before the kids get killed, not after.

Authorities routinely intervene in such domestic situations, and rational liberals and conservatives strew rose petals in their paths as they bust in the offender's door. Does the fact that a cop might get hurt in the process make a difference in the decision process?

The analogy is not perfect of course. But it does have some application to the international situation.

Aside from the obvious threat of rogue nations to their neighbors, how high do the mountains of skulls have to get in these nations before it's enough? Saddam has killed ten times the number of people that had NATO rolling over Eastern Europe to prevent genocide.