[dogscoff]

Saddam gone, millions free of a brutal dictator that had 5 year olds imprisoned, and you can't see anything positive that has come from the war?

Like I say, another Saddam will rise up to take his place as soon as the Americans pull out. Or, more likely, a dozen mini-saddams all fighting it out.

As far as "anti western" sentiment in the middle east..geez, take your head out. Since WHEN did the middle east ever NOT have that? The "anti west" sentiment has been there since the CRUSADES, hell, even BEFORE as they came into Europe and sacked ROME.

Agreed, there has always been tension, although in recent times it's mainly been down to ex-colonial tensions and the whole Isreali issue rather than the crusades. However that's no reason to just say "sod it, it's bad, let's make it worse."

Fuel terrorism? Poverty is a far better fuel then political retoric my friend. Its hard as hell to get someone to blow themselves up when they got a nice family, home and life to live for. But make it where they see nothing to live for and they will strap that bomb on thier back and nuke themselves.

Which just goes to show how poorly the US understands the mentality out there. Many of the Iraqi attacks on on US troops right now are not Al Qaeda operastives or Saddam's guerilla's, they are regular people repaying blood debts incurred during or shortly after the war. Many Iraqis- particularly in Bhagdad *had* nice homes, families, lives and so on before the war. What are those people doing now? Blowing **** up in Baghdad. What about those brits and americans who went over to afghanistan to risk their lives fighting the americans?

Men, women and children were taken from their homes in the dead of night to be tortured, raped and killed in prisons by thugs on a routine basis,

THis still goes on, only now it's the so called "liberators" doing it. FOr as long as they've been in control of Iraq the US has been scooping people up in the dead of night - men, women and children- and whisking them off to camp X-Ray and more local destinations for torture and- sometimes- death. All without trial.

HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS were being killed by the government of Saddam EACH YEAR. In the ENTIRE WAR EFFORT TO DATE we have not come CLOSE to that number if you add up ALL CASUALTIES on ALL SIDES.

Hundreds of thousands? I assume those figures are based on the deaths caused by international sanctions in the Last 15 years.

I don't see it happening in Iraq

Don't you? What do you see? Are you sure you're watching the news and not the Cosby Show?

took out the Taliban in Afganistan. I don't see this happening there so somehow

Last I heard all was not rosy in Afghanistan. We just don't hear about it because of the press' short attention span. Anyone know the latest on what's going on out there?

The world economy is based on the US Dollar.

The US green back is accepted damn near everywhere, no other currency is.

Hooray. Whoopee. Let's throw a party. I don't quite see the relevance, or how that's supposed to endear the US to me.

{Supposed Al Qaeda camps & US aid overseas}

Addressed by others before I wrote this...

As for who brought down the towers and killed thousands of innocents..it wasn't the Saudi Arabians..it was Al Q operatives who happen to be FROM that country.

If you go back to my original post you;ll see that I didn't include the definite article. I said "Saudi Arabians", not "THE Saudi Arabians".

And if the US was really the "wild and wooly cowboy" you say, the world would be either a member of the US commonwealth or a smoking ruin.

I think we're well on the way. The PNAC seems to lean more toward the former than the latter.

Understand that there is only ONE superpower left in the world. The US has the ability to project its power where ever it desires. No other country can do that nor even come close.

Wow, that makes me really happy.

As I said before, when the towers fell, the majority of the American people wanted blood for blood. It is a testament to the strength of this nation that instead of dropping the hammer on the entire Middle and Near East like the wrath of Almighty God we instead had leaders that remained calm and have slowly, painfully worked to seek out those that would do such horrible acts and stop them.

Again, what channel are you watching? As soon as the twin towers dropped, Bush gave in to the howls for heads and invaded Afghanistan. Then he tried to stir up even more bloodlust so he could take on Iraq and started positioning himself for the grand tour.

And I'll say once again, even if you disagree with all this, you need to appreciate that much (most?) of the world seems to feel the same. ANd you can't just brush me off for being "part of a crowd of people that don't have a clue". If the US is as wonderful as you say it is and so many ppl don't have a clue, you need to ask yourself why? Why are we so misinformed? What are you doing wrong with your PR that your image is so badly misaligned with reality? Or could we actually be right about some or all of this?