The wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq are being fought based on the principle that most of the inhabitants of those nations would prefer not to live under a tyranny. Maybe this is naive, or maybe this is a great truth. Either way, this restricts what we can do fighting the war itself. Our military and leaders are feeling their way through this step by step. It's something new. Maybe it will work. Maybe it won't. But if it does, fifty million people have a chance at freedom that didn't before.

This costs American lives to save the lives of the citizens in those countries. Soldiers on the ground instead of bombs from the sky. Targets selected on a case-by-case basis, not cities turned into rubble. God knows we could have erased both nations, and all our enemies, in a single afternoon without our military people missing a meal, much less losing their lives. But that wasn't the choice we made.

Sure, Raoul is naive. That's not news. It's also not news that France had less-than-noble financial motives regarding Iraq, and is doing something similar in Sudan right now.