We need this badly. We can game plan a world where the US doesn't try to undercut the UN, where the US doesn't torture prisoners, where a destabilized Middle East isn't a breeding ground for terrorists and the Pakistan plutonium reactor isn't a breeding ground for nukes.

Where Pakistan isn't considered a nuclear proliferator, and their military dictatorship is considered the "moral equivalent of democracy". Where Chalabi is regarded as a savior instead of spy, where Halliburton is considered a capitalist Red Cross and the Red Cross isn't regarded as a profit center for Republican consultants.

Where Iraq was a threat to the US, where preemptive war is not considered naked aggression but "self-defence". Where the infrastructure of a country can be dismantled and it can still function without civil war. Where 30,000 deaths are not considered evidence of a civil war.

Oh, my, it would be wonderful. We could do anything. We could imagine that the US could slaughter Iraqis, live in Saddam's palaces, and still be regarded as "liberators". US agents could rape, pillage, murder, send people anywhere and everywhere for torture and the world would still applaud the US committment to human rights.

I could go on, but that would be good for starters. We could play, and play, fantasize and fantasize, dream, make heroes out of scoundrels.

But we'd have to remind some folks it was a fantasy.

Arf