9/11 don't enter into it, but you keep dragging it back as an excuse to ignore Saddam and his mini-Hitler regime. You can play him down as a jerk all you like, buit he remains a true and direct threat against US interests and lives, both here, and overseas, through his o, so noble "suiside-bomber awards" program, as well as his acceptance of global terrorism as a legal weapon against nations and peoples he does not like. He has WMD, AND ENJOYS USING THEM (documnented fact). He tortures captives, both local and POWs, AND ENJOYS TAPING THEIR DEATHS FOR PERSONAL REVIEW (documented fact). Now, he may have chosen to ignite Iraq's oil fields, rather than allow his people to enjoy the wealth of their land once he departs (in the news today).

Now, we have a moral responsibility to finish Desert Storm, and have had that hanging over us through (ignored) UN resolutions against Iraq for the past 12 years. Iraq is merely seeking closure to the Gulf War. We are finally obliging.

Period.

At the Naval Academy the required course on the art of war featured tracts by Lao Tsu, George Kennan, and Carl von Clausewitcz. Don't see this one doing anything other than confirming that "war is a continuation of politics by other means." In short, war is a political failure.

Try seeing it as training tacticians. If a tactician is not properly trained against the tactics of past generals of enemy nations, he will fall to the future generals of enemy nations. Now, if you wish to believe that training in another's tactics is the same as brainwashing a person to become that other person, try not to read anything by Poe.

War is a breakdown of politics, not a failure. Properly used, it is a tool of persuasion. Saddam failed to use war properly, and so it falls on him and his forces.

From a political standpoint this war gives us very little to gain and much to lose. We can only hope this is not the potential that will be realized

your lack of experience is showing. Study the area, then review your findings in a "what if" scenario, with Iraq operating with a viable governament that accepts personal freedom for its own people, as well as the nations around it. What happens to a BIG chunk of Middle-East instability?

Or did you think we would have nothing to gain by bringing peace to the Middle East?
Dan (and try not to expect the blooming garden overnight)