Ok, let's say everything you're contending is true (which I highly doubt). Where does it end? Did WWII, which I believe was a just conflict to enter, stop torture and despotic governments? Did it teach the Soviets that invading other countries was detrimental to humankind?

The problem is short-sighted thinking. History shows that warfare almost never fixes things. It simply relocates the problem. I'm not saying it's not inevitable and I would never engage in it, just that if you do, you have to be intelligent enough to explore the consequences of removing power from an enemy. A power vacuum always finds a way to fill itself and often with something worse.

REB, do you believe we have the military power to put out every fire on the Earth at the same time? If not, then where's the end? Are we simply destined to fight until we exterminate ourselves? I understand the desire to do away with despots like Saddam but let's be a bit more creative about it. If you only can garner a guess about what the effects of invading a country are going to be 10 years down the road, that seems a pretty poor decision to make. However, if enemy combatents are massing on your border, I have no problem with taking immediate action. History has shown that purely defensive actions generally have good outcomes.

I'd like to have one person tell me an incident in history where a country has invaded another for similar justifications and actually reaped a long term reward for it and maybe I can put some creedance in your arguments. I've studied history and human behavior extensively and I simply haven't seen it ever work.