"Saddam also demonstrated the means, capability, intent, and dedication to use WMD on both his own people and on people of nations he was attacking."

But never against the United states or her allies, even when being attacked by the united states or her allies. Therefore you can not make a self defense argument. QED.
what can't you accept here?

Tom wrote:
"Even if we don't have hard links with Al Quaeda, his support of terrorism in general is proven, including connections to the first WTC bombing"

Oh, really? Got proof? Links? Anything? Or just more claims that sound plausible but don't have a factul substrate?

"You can make a defensible case that it isn't the same, since our job, by most strict Constitutional interpretations, is to attack only those who attack Americans, but in an interconnected world, I'm not sure we have the luxury of that outlook any more"

Ah. Then it is fair game? Kill and kill alike? Everyone can attack whoever they 'feel' is a threat? Again, what is the bar? Laughable discountable hunches?

"Could America stand by and watch Israel destroyed, for example? How about Taiwan? South Korea? "

But none of this was happening or would have happened if Iraq was not invaded.

" You can make a defensible case that it isn't the same, since our job, by most strict Constitutional interpretations, is to attack only those who attack Americans"

And don't you have a problem with constitutional activism (aka 'interpretation')? Or just the instances you disagree with?

Tom wrote:
"Don't know about morality in general, but war sure as hell works that way. Every war in history, just or unjust, involves exactly this kind of moral calculation. "

No, that is categorically not the case. A False, and indefensible position. We attacked Japan to defend against it attacking us. We Attacked Germany because it declared war on us. THAT is the moral axiom that JUST war is based on. When we firebombed Dresden, we were most certainly NOT concerned with a low body count.

"Unless the outcome of the war is estimated to outweigh the cost--in wealth, lives, property, etc.--what would be the point of ANY war, no matter how just? "

What? This makes no sense. We must defend ourselves no matter what the case- or cease to exist as a nation state.

"We judged that the over 3,000 civilians dead in Afghanistan...who are just as dead and for the most part, just as innocent as those in Iraq...were worth the outcome of disrupting an anti-American terrorist infrastructure"

No, not just anti-american. We were rooting out enemies of the united states that were commited to her Physical and Economic destruction. There is a difference. There are 'anti-americans' all-over-the-world.

Tom wrote:
"We made similar calculations in WWII. Hell, we atom-bombed Japan. The possible lives saved from the alternative of an invasion of the Japanese mainland?"

Revisionist history, Tom. And I hope accidental. We Nuked Japan to spare the AMERICAN lives that would be lost executing our invasion and to maximize the outcome for Our Side- OUR RIGHT in a war of survival, which I don't question.

You are fogging the issue. We prosicuted WWII to defend ourselves, not to stop people from dying.

We prosecuted the american revolution not to stop people for dying, but to defend ourselves from the tyranny of illegitimate rule, and the preservation of our rights as people.

We prosecuted the Korean war to prevent the Korean peninsula from falling to communists.

All of this were done for proactive reasons that were NOT a calculus of real vs. immagined bodies. That claim is false and revisionist.

Davin L.