pintle wrote:
Project for a new american century (the closest thing I think you will have found (they changed the public face of it a lot post 9/11) to a clear statement of intent by the current power mongers sitting in the white house) clearly stated the strategic and economic interests in destabilising Saddam's regime, the invasion was definitely not altruistic and I really don't believe you are dumb enough to actually believe it was Forb.
/loony lefty rant
/me puts on tinfoil hat and goes back being a "goddam liberal socialist" sitting on my ass and not doing anything about the problems in the world that i love to complain about so vehemently
Well I think you're taking it a bit to far here, but lets be honest... Almost everyone in congress is obsessed with power, democrats, repubicans (refer to my earlier explaination of this word). This is bad, and it is definitely a cause for concern for everyone in the US regardless of where your political persuasions lie.
I'm not sure why you refer to the white house as power mongers... He's already on his second term, he can't get reelected. I believe that you are mainly speaking of congress here, because that actually makes sense and is quite true.
Actually whether the invasion was altruistic or not would actually depend on who you asked imo. Do I personally believe that it was? No, not particularly, but it was something that needed to be done, and 50 years down the line I believe that we will see a much better middle east because of it. Things take time to come back to normalicy, this is a fact of life. Regardless of which idiot in the white house tells you that they can fix an entire world in 8 years, they can't. Stability takes time (As we are seeing in Iraq), and to establish stability by extension needs patience.
There is no way you could possibly know this, but there are a lot of Iraqis that come through this office, and when I can I always try to get their assessments and opinions (in a way as not to disrespect them or their families), and to be honest, the large majority of them are happy about it. They understand that it takes time, but it all comes back to one of the most basic principles of life. People need to be free. And that to me, is worth fighting a war.
Edit: A true socialist liberal would never admit that Saddam was a bad man

(That is unless the polls indicated that the public would like to hear it).