When all the smokes clear, a century from now Bush will be recognized as the catalytic agent that brought change to the way the Middle East did business. The facade that tyrants like Saddam maintained under the encouragement of Europe and Russia helped to keep people living in a dictatorship.

THe spotlight is truly on the ugliness in the region. Islam has had to look at it's darkest elements and start an internal purging and declaration of "what is right and wrong in the name of Islam" and this alone could never have come about without this toppling of Saddam and presence of the US.

The US presence is cathartic to every nation we have ever been involved with - including Vietnam. American's automatic assumption of liberty was unknown in many regions and it rubs off when we station troops or even wage war against a country.

The dollars are meaningless in the larger context. Better Islam start it's reformation instead of skipping it altogether after their population doubles 100 years from now and it gets that much harder or impossible. Better the UN, Europe and Russia be spotlighted for their business practices with tyrants than to let their festering corruption spread and keep billions enslaved so a few Euros on Russians can live high on the hog.

And let's not forget the oil. We still pay less than every other modern nation for a very good reason. We buy huge quantities and secure competitive pricing by providing protection for the Saudis and Kuwait, etc. If we were like Germany or France with no troops in the region and afraid to protect our business partners...we'd be paying 6.50 a gallon like they do in the Netherlands.

I'll let you figure out the math on what that saves the US consumer and US industry each year.

Hint: It's more than 12 billion a month.

;-)