It's really a tragedy.

You have missed the part where the Taliban was willing to consider turning over OBL, but Bush & Co. didn't want that. They're black-and-white thinking drove them to demand OBL "or else", which the Taliban couldn't accept.

Clearly Bush wanted to invade.

You have only blown the pipeline out of the water in your own mind. Hanging around that alternate universe in which neo-cons and other demogogues live does that. The problem with that alternate universe is that it doesn't match reality. Doesn't fit, and when it runs head-first into reality, it gets it's nose bloodied.

Look at the projections for Iraq, Afghanistan and the reality and tell me that isn't true. Nothing Bush & Co. predicted has happened. Well, maybe a puppet government, but not propped up with 140,000 American troops forever. Reality wins. Which means that black-and-white thinkers have to defend their ideas even more vigorously.

Negotiations, offering something you have for something you want. Making it possible. I've learned in life that in negotiating 10% is figuring out what you want, 90% is figuring out how to make it easy for the other guy to give it to you.

Something black-and-white thinkers will NEVER understand.

So, live in the alternate universe. But at least wonder why it doesn't relate to the real world. Why it can't predict, why it can't manage to subdue even a third-world country in less time that WWII took. Try to realize the implications of that! And accept, eventually, abject failure as the result of neocon policies, not because of some conspiracy of the media.

Arf