Apparently you missed his point, which was that, as with many other discussions of the war in Iraq, Saddam's regime has been utterly erased from the discussion. To listen to a lot of people here, you'd think we'd invaded frigging Switzerland, and nothing bad happened until we showed up.

I have found a similar phenomenon in discussions of Israel and the Middle East, where the subject of territory completely ignores the circumstances of how that territory was acquired.

I'd love to take a street survey of how many people in America even know that there were wars of extermination by the Arab world against Israel.

Frankly, I'm getting a bit tired of this "higher standards" crap. It amounts to saying that if we catch the Pope kicking a little kid and stealing his candy that he is just as bad as Adolph Hitler, because we EXPECT so much more of the Pope, and of COURSE we expect evil out of Hitler.

You know what? It doesn't work any more. The worst offenses at Abu Ghraib committed by Americans, for which they are being properly punished, pale into insignificance against what used to go on there, as part of a regime that would STILL be there, doing the same damn things, if you and others here had their way.