[beepbeep]

Theres something ele that needs to be said...it seems that in the Arab world and in the Central Asian world in general only strength of arms and willingness to use them is respected....just take a long term look at the history of the region.it is filled with violence, brutality and deceit...

Well, it's beacuse that region happends to have a history extending further back than 1600's. Wars are integral part of any society that has some history to speak off.

If you look little closer, majority of GW administration made their private fortunes in oil industry. Bush, Cheney, Rice (sp?) ...

Also, there are huge (we are talking billions of dollars) future restoration and oil-contracts being awarded just as we speak. If you would care to check, you'll notice that executive of one of those companies is personal friend of GWB and that other high member of administration used to (surprize!) work as executive in one of thoose.

American inhouse oil production is thinning out, and demand is raising which forces US to import more and more oil. Analysis say that ratio of production/import has to rise to 65% of import to cover demand in next ten years.

Iraq sits on sizable oil-deposits and they, if controlled by US, could lessen US dependence on OPEC setting oil prices and thus allow "american lifestyle living" blokes to drive their V8 for ten more years...and after that? Well, who cares, GWB won't be sitting there and that pesky global warming thing?...ahh, it's probably something those tree-huggers just came up with, right?

This war, low down, is a risky gamble of controlling oil supply and also (empty) gesture of "doing something agains terrorists" which will hopefully be swallowed by hords of scared and non-aware citizens (and they are unfortunately, quite many) which are supposed to be "awed" by "swift decisions" and vote republican next time around.

Plan has been wrapped in "we will help inforce democracy and overthrow dictator" -package. (Un)fortunately it seems to be backfiring big time as things aren't going the way Rumsfeld tought they were.

Tommy Franks initially asked for many more troups to tackle the invasion, but Rumsfeld relied on Shias and Kurds raising against Saddam as soon as war started, cutting down original 400 000 soldiers to just around 250 000. Also, war was supposed to go much faster. As this war is an investment into a region and it's oil-rights, it probably had some sort of "break-even" point that has probably being overshot now.

"Uprising" didn't materialize and now we have prolonged war with following logistic nightmare and escalating cost. To make matter worse, "humanistic" aspect of "liberating Iraq" is just getting tougher and tougher to maintain, as Iraqis doesn't seem to want to be "liberated" and are beggining to employ guerilla-style tactics drawing coalition forces into costly urban-area confrontations which wasn't anticipaced by Rumsfeld. 90% of turk population is against intervention which made it impossible to deploy troops trough turkey.

On the end, even if i leave humanitarian, ethic and political aspects of this war aside (which shouldn't be done) i have hard time seeing it as a sucess...even if it's originally being waged just to securing flow of oil. It's costs (originally to be recouped by oil-income from a region) are escallating and "humanistic"-wrap hastilly assembled around it to please Joe Public is crumbling.

Saddam is a dictator, and did do nasty things to his own population during it's stay in power but calling this war "a liberation" and "war agains terrorism" is bending truth so much it's verging on hypocrisy.

See it, folks: he was there, sitting duck on a ocean of oil, no weapons to talk about, and history of bad things. A perfect target for a questionable president willing to please big-bussines interests (who also happened to finance his campain), secure flow of oil and distract domestic public from internal problems.

In the end, I do truly believe that american people aren't so easily decieved and that this administration will be overturned in 2004, going to annals of history as "one of those bad things that happend" and "wrong people in wrong place at wrong time".

America did do some right moves, especially when it comes to solving crisis in Balkan-region where EU acted teethless at it's best, but it doesn't automatically grants you rights to overturn regimes in other countries at will.