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Are you paying attention? I never said Saddam was a good guy. That is called a rhetorical device. I thought that was obvious, but apparently I will have to be more emphatic in the future for clarification. IT'S BESIDE THE POINT! However, if we want to go down that road, Saddam was as evil or as good as was his usefulness to our foreign policy. His Hitler qualities only became important after he ran afoul of our strategic needs in the region. In the same vein, regarding the reference to blacks and Mexicans. ITS AN ANALOGY. You're not supposed to take it literally. My point is that whites have been and to some extent remain the dominant social group in this country. I am not making a value judgment about this one way or the other. I thought this was clear as well but obviously not. What I am saying is if some country put one of these groups in charge of the rest of us, we would not sit back and say, cool, we totally agree with you. I could substitute rich over poor if you like but it doesn't change the argument. When a foreign country invades your country, you are going to create enemies of the people who lost out in the deal. Even those who gained by your presence will want you to leave eventually.

I think you might benefit by reading a little more carefully in the future.

You will note as well that in the first election most Sunnis did not participate in the election process. Furthermore, those foreign fighters you speak of never constituted the majority. Most of the fighters we were facing were Iraqi Sunnis. It was only after rift developed between these groups that our military was able to take advantage of this and drive a wedge between them. Even so, I would not take anything as a given in that country. Most of the Sunnis set down their arms in exchange for jobs in the military or in civil service. To the extent that the Shiites follow up on this, they will better ensure that the civil war does not reignite. I wouldn't take the status of Iraq as a settled question at all despite the lull in violence.

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And another thing, I don't confuse love of country with specific foreign policy issues. This another point that reflects a low quality of reasoning. There is nothing more patriotic or more American than criticizing the government because you want the tone of leadership to reflect the best expression of our ideals. That's real and substantive patriotism not the cheerleading variety that Republicans always push. Being self critical is what defines adult love of country. Its the recognition that America is not a static expression but one that is always in need of change and improvement.

My opinions regarding this war are not that easy to categorize. You're caricaturization follows your prejudices. I did oppose the invasion. NOT because I thought Saddam was good man but because I believed for pragmatic reasons he was irrelevant to the war on terror. Now that we are there, I believe we do have to leave in a responsible way. But I never bought the hype about Saddam and the mushroom cloud. I knew that was bull. Saddam was not a natural ally of Al Qaida. If he ever did produce a nuclear weapon, he would have been far too paranoid to hand it over to Al Qaida.

The war itself was so badly botched that it put us in danger , detracted from our credibility, and has compromised the more important war which was in Afghanistan not to mention straining our economy. In other words, it was stupid. I don't buy the high minded rhetoric about freedom either. Its more like expediency. We wanted a strategic stronghold in the mid east to protect energy. This business about liberating Iraq is for public consumption. If we hated Saddam so much, why did Ronald Reagan block the UN's attempt to have him listed as an international war criminal in 1983? Why did Bush senior send Saddam a telegram expressing a desire to improve relations between our two countries just days before he invaded Kuwait? The answer is that he served a purpose to our foreign policy until he invaded Kuwait and threatened oil supplies.

In truth, Saudi Arabia is the biggest supporter of Muslim extremist in the world. They are Wahhabist central and their petro dollars are disseminated to extremist groups around the world which has planted radical Islamic seeds in countries that at one time were more moderate. Fifteen of the hijackers were Saudis and that is where the money came from to support their operations. They will never be held to the fire for this, however, because our need for energy trumps our principles. At the end of the day what we are witnessing here is preserving access to oil. If there were nothing but date palms and camels in this region, I can assure you we wouldn't give the mid east any attention. We need comprehensive energy policy in this country and a move toward conservation.

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The fundamental premise expressed in the post blithely overlooks the HISTORICAL FACT that "WE" (however unwittingly --- or maybe in some cases NOT!) actually SPONSORED and BANKROLLED Saddam, by way of "CONTROLLING" and subsequently BUYING what he "had to sell". Sorry, folks, but "we" can't get off by PRETENDING to each other and "our"selves that HE somehow arose as an INDEPENDENT force of evil. He WAS, after all, originally "OUR" cat's paw!

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