Al jazeera exploits them, France will exploit them and yet it will all be blamed on George Bush - the only leader of these nations who really wants to save them.

The only leader? How long have you been omniscient?

Maybe George Bush really does want to save people. Who am I to judge his imagination?

I can, must, and do judge his oversight of the planning required to make it happen. Faced with what I see as a gross deception to justify the initial invasion, I admit that I'm not induced to trust the man now. The planning for the aftermath to the Iraq invasion was poor and insufficient, not to mention out of touch with the political history of the area, as demonstrated by the results thus far, which we are obliged to clean up since we made the mess. The effort in Afghanistan, which received wide-spread support throughout the world, has been starved by the distraction in Iraq. Wishes do not make a thing so. Only hard work and many hands will do that. The hard work was fudged or shoved off on the too-few soldiers in the field. The many hands were slapped away by the "my way or the highway" approach that passes for American diplomacy these days.

Then the RLs and Daniels of the world can react to the news--their own valuable role in the scheme of these things.

Ah, yes: Reply is a "response" only if the reply is one that is favorable to your take on things. If it is not favorable, it's a "reaction". Context is everything in SpinWorld.

Reaction and political exploitation is what gets innocent folks killed.

Action also gets innocent folks killed: for example, pre-emptive first strikes. Such a luxury, to be able to take a swing at anyone we want because they scare or annoy us! We could never have gotten away with such a thing in the bad old days of Mutually Assured Destruction. So much better, these days of Random Access Destruction.

But that's why it's called Terror: the rules all go by the wayside, for the appointed and the self-appointed, for the weak and the powerful alike. Blow up children? Sure. Abrogate or ignore treaties? No problem. Launder money through charities and NPOs? Go for it. Warp religious beliefs to justify carnage? Goes to past practice. Civil rights? Well, there are some things you have to give up if you want to keep up. But that's just Them, right? Nope: that's where we are all going. If we become the thing we fight against, the forces of Terror win, because (with thanks to Walt Kelly) "we have seen the enemy and they are us". If that danger isn't worth speaking up to protest, then we might just as well elect an Emperor and be done with it.

What angers me is that there could have been a better world than this, maybe, in which the US was not just viewed as the kid with the biggest baseball bat on the block. I always thought that leadership was about being brave enough, and strong enough, to adhere to the rules and encourage others to do the same by example. Apparently that concept is too old-fashioned.

Reaction to violent action can be violent itself, but it can also take the form of justice, a generally approved concept. That is a police function, though, not one that is notably easy to conduct by military means, in much the same way as surgery is usually not done with a chain saw.

Political exploitation happens all over. Look to New York City in the coming week. I will be very interested to see how many of the speakers actually address the Republican Party platform as written, and how many only speak for themselves.