And it's nice to see one issue we agree on. ;)

One wonders if someday the technology of warfare will advance to the point where taking out a foreign leader will be very simple and straightforward, with little or no collateral damage.

It should be remembered that our military did make the attempt, with what technology we had, to take out Saddam in the first hours of the war. We came damn close a couple of times. What if that had succeeded? Would anything be different now? What if drones with Zarqawi's face imprinted in their memory banks were patrolling all of Iraq right now?

Sure, a warfare culture based on assassination opens Western countries up to the same things. But they don't have the gadgets, for one thing. And a democracy is a lot less vulnerable to having the top of the pyramid lopped off than a tyranny is.

And in my more cynical moments, I wonder if a war in which those who have power as an ambition are among the first to get knocked off could only improve the human race.