Tom, (or should I say Charlie Brown) you read just the parts you want to. I never said WWII didn't fulfill some immediate aims. I just said that after that huge conflict, horrible regimes still existed and flourished and one, the Soviet Union, was actually emboldened to do the very thing Germany was trying to do. War is all about immediate gratification which, if you read my post carefully, I said is justified if your borders are threatened. You simply have no choice at that point.

Nobody can predict the outcome of a conflict as the tenacles of actions spread out decades after the fact. The only known thing is that warfare creates change. To speak in absolutes that your desired outcome will be achieved, even if you possess overwhelming strength, is simply ridiculous.

That's the point you miss from the people protesting the war in Iraq. They're not for evil dictators. They just seem to have the ability to see beyond the immediate blood lust we all had after 9/11 and understand that human behavior is modified not by the "eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth" philosophy but by intelligent action and above all by setting a good and moral example in your foreign policy.

Art