[nsmart]

Did we want Milosevic put back in power in Serbia? Of course not. But that didn't stop me from opposing the war.

[Mr. Mojo]

But then what's the point of all the criticism?

The Nov. elections.

[evm]

I'd say that's a pretty silly argument. The basic argument against the war (and it comes from libertarians as well as liberals) is that taking out Saddam wasn't worth the loss of U.S. life and the financial cost, that Saddam was being contained and that he wasn't a threat to the U.S. So to make your argument reasonable you would have to bring back the dead and cure the wounded in exchange for putting Saddam back in power.

We now know that a lot of pre-war intelligence was off the mark, but the bottom line is that based on what we though we knew (and intelligence isn't an exact science by any means) at the time, invading Iraq was the right thing to do. We also know that we had no choice but to invade given Saddam's violation of UN sanctions. This was wasn't about a threat to the U.S. (IMHO), or about WMD, it was about Saddam's continued refusal to follow the terms of the 1991 cease-fire agreement and subsequent U.N. resolutions. We had every right to invade and topple him as a result of his own actions, actions which continue to be unexplainable given that we now know his WMD capabilities were a charade.

Hindsight is 20/20 but I doubt you could find too many folks who supported the war a year ago who wouldn't support it again based on what was known at that time. I supported the war then, I support it now, even with what we now know.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Reminds me of when the first Bush Administration proposed dismantling the Hetchy-Ketch (sp) damn. When the damn was originally built in the 1930's the environmentalist raised a hue and a cry. Bush proposed undoing the damage and of course all the Californian Democrats opposed it. But if it doesn't make sense to build the next damn, mightn't it make sense to dismantle at least one existing one? And there was none more controversial when it was built.