"Very much the same thing happened in Afghanistan as in Iraq except the assault on the former was justified to crush the Taliban and Al-Quaeda, while the latter was a geopolitical gambit to create a self-financing puppet state to threaten all Arab nations that bordered it, and to provide an anvil on which to hammer Iran with Afghanistan. WMDs, AL-Quaeda connections and Saddam's brutality were not reasons, they were excuses."

It appears that if some people had this alleged intention of having Iraq be a puppet state then that intention has failed to materialize- considering that Iraq's citizens voted for their leadership. But one's perception of a puppet state can be so distorted that governments elected by their own people could be viewed as puppet state. One can even go so far in this kind of delusional or shallow thinking that any democratically elected govt is a puppet state, i.e. only autocratic type leadership has any possiblity of not being puppet state. And/or any form of dependence can be depicted as being the same as being a puppet state. This shallow thinking might be part of the reason some people had so many fantasies in regard to such leaders as Stalin, Saddam, or other fascist/dictorships.
A similar type of thing to puppet state idea, was the recent common habit of calling Blair a poodle. And then we also have old myth of the Jews and their controlling the world as the ultimate puppetmasters. These methods of viewing the world is mostly dependent on not thinking rationally but instead is mostly a futile emotional exercise that is disguised in words that appear to be rational.

Of course it is very common for human beings to regard issues based upon emotional "thought". And this realm is dominated by the "news"- people who consider themselves as making reality. No one with any brains, has ever depended upon the "news" to get credible information. The news has always been dominated by sensational type "information"- lying or exaggerating is the general rule of the business. And in an effort to curb devaluation, much showmanship as been devoted the appearance of the "professionalism" of these clowns who report the news.

The power of the news is a real factor, it can affect people's emotions in the short term and by constant drumbeat can brainwash a lot of people in longer term basis. It has the real capablity to make a certain percent of people buy a particular brand of soap. In recent times, the most significant success they have achieved is selling the idea that they provide reliable objective information- nothing of course is further from the truth.

One way to look at terrorism is that it is a virus or drug for the news media. A virus in the sense that terrorist use the news media mechanism and it has the power to destroy, alter, and use this lifeform. A drug in that it provides a news fix and it alters the normal functioning- it can also possibly cause in sense a change in awareness.

Ultimately the news media with it's liberal bias will have helped George Bush- though this was not their intention. And George Bush will go down in the history books as a Great President. Much gnawing of teeth will ensue in general, but specifically the news media will not fundementally change because human nature will not fundementally change- the news will always be about entertainment and about people trying to spin facts rather doing the energy intensive and more boring work of providing rational information to "inform the reader". And of course people will still dream of being able to control other people like puppets- and yet at same time face the glaring fact that they are unable to make even their own children clean their room or pick up their toys.