When you constantly have to change your justification for your position it really makes you look like a moral coward that will do anything to avoid doing the responsible thing and admitting to a mistake.

1) We invaded Iraq because Saddam DEFINITELY had WMD, in fact we knew EXACTLY where they were- trust us... We HAD to take action even though we couldn't disclose the 'smoking gun' proof- otherwise the smoking gun may come in the form of a mushroom cloud....

OK, so it turns out the intelligence was 'faulty' - there were no WMD, we were not faced with imminent danger from Iraq at all, and its very clear that the fact is that intelligence indicating that truth was supressed and ignored. Time for a new paradigm...

2) Invading Iraq was required as part of our war on terrorism, you gotta support that, because 'you are either with us or against us'... You surely aren't going to stand with the axis of evil, are you? Besides, we havent had another 9-11 since then, have we?

OK, turns out Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11, we admit it! It also is true that our invasion has greatly damaged our relations with our allies, cant deny that! We have greatly increased recruitment of terrorists in the arab world... BUT its better than another 9-11, you HAVE to admit that!

Do the math- the cost of the war was estimated to be $50 billion dollars, which is about HALF the estimated financial cost of 9-11 to America- IT WAS A FREAKIN BARGAIN!! OK, it turns out our estimates were a LITTLE off, turns out a conservative estimate of the financial cost of the invasion and occupation of Iraq are 30 times the financial cost of 9-11 and we don't have any end in sight... Lets consider the HUMAN cost of 9-11, you CAN'T put a price tag on that!

Well, ok, its TRUE that more americans have died in this war than died on 9-11, and YES its true that 10's of thousands of Iraqi's have also died from this war (Its NOT fair to count them, of course, since those are not AMERICAN lives, besides we can postulate an alternative universe where Saddam might have killed even more in that time)... YES its also true that the number of injured is FAR greater than those injured on 9-11... And yes, its true that the HUMAN cost is easily MANY times that of 9-11... The Point is...(sigh) The point is I guess we need another paradigm shift!

3) We invaded to bring democracy to Iraq, and a democratic Iraq WILL magically bring stability and peace to that area of the world! Remember the joy we felt seeing those Iraqi thumbs dyed purple?(*Tearing up, lump in throat*) HOW can you even think of putting a price on that?! (Granted that price DOES start somewhere around 30 times the price of 9-11)

We should be willing to pony up the cash to help those poor Iraqi's... of course if some damn liberal proposed spending that money on something frivolous, like free college education for all americans, the conservatives would scream their heads off! But bringing democracy to non-americans who don't seem particularly happy about being occupied, and who will never pay american taxes- well you cant put a price on that.

Ok, well, even WE have to admit that this whole utopian vision thing didnt quite work out like we planned... The Iraqi government is divided and ineffective and failing miserably at meeting pretty much all the benchmarks of progress that we set... meanwhile people are tortured and killed by death squads, and suicide bombings, and YES al-queda actually does have a foothold in a region that they didnt have before... Yes, it does appear that the region is less stable than before the invasion, and YES Iran is now really developing nuclear weapons, HONEST AND FOR REAL this time, and YES the international community seems less willing to listen to us for some reason... (sigh) where was I going with this...? Oh, right! We need another paradigm shift!!!

4) Fighting the terrorists over there means we dont have to fight them over here!

As long as we keep them tied up in Iraq our homeland is safe! Well, its safe as long as we keep them tied up over there and give our government unprescedented power to suspend haebeus corpus... oh and give them the right to use whatever means of torture, err interrogation, they see fit- If our government doesnt have that power AMERICANS _WILL_ DIE, oh - and if we don't grant telecoms retroactive immunity for letting us spy on communications on an immense scale AMERICANS _WILL_ DIE... But honestly, as long as we fight them over there we are safe... kinda... Just shut up and stop asking dangerous questions, Do you want the terrorists to win?!

Of course Madrid and London had a bit of bad luck... that sure sucks, but remember- those weren't american lives that were lost!

Unless you let us have our way, AMERICANS _WILL_ DIE!!! (And when WE say that, its comepletely different than when the terrorists say it!)

So... at some point you have to admit an ever shifting paradigm isnt worth 20 cents- and given the falling dollar....

Instead of yelling at people that claim that this war has not been worth the cost, MAYBE it is YOUR responsibility to show that that this war and its ever more elusive 'Victory' (Whatever your paradigm of the week defines victory as) IS worth three thousand billion dollars. After all, YOU are the one that has defended this war no matter what. Just how exactly was this 3 trillion dollars a good deal?

For that price we could have just given every muslim in the world a couple of thousand dollars... Not suggesting that we do so, but you gotta admit that would probably buy a bit more goodwill than killing tens of thousands have... We could have spent that money in many ways that would have made us more secure- can you possibly argue that this war really was worth it?