Kinda like how the Jews weren't a threat to Germany, but they had the potential, so something had to be done, right? Hitler was the proactive one by your definition, numbnuts.

Don't lecture me on being proactive. Ill-conceived action is not being proactive, it's being stupid. You have to credulously analyse the facts, and THEN act. Somewhere, somehow, that all important step was accidentally, or willfully, ignored with Iraq. (my bets are on the latter).

Flip open your history book. What ended that war? Was it expression of greater technology in the two A-Bombs, or was it the narrow-minded syphoning of troops to Europe? It was the bombs, mostly. Now, if we had a "Manhattan Project" with the talent and pressure similar to the original, but focused on ending our oil dependence - they'd have a pretty decent shot of finding an answer, a source of multiple energies, or greater security and efficiency in nuclear plants, or whatever.....We could stop HAVING to interfere with the economies and govts of the middle east to support our One-Trick Petroleum-Pony Economy. But no, we direct funds that could go to that into boot level troops that only serve as a reminder (and augmenter) of Bin Laden"s original rallying cry. (Do you remember his original laundry list of problems with America? Chief among them, THE REASONS WHY HE CHOSE US AN AN ENEMY - "(America) interferes too much with middle eastern countries... trying to manipulate the markets to keep oil prices down"). It's true, and yes, we had to. No, it doesn't justify what he did, he should have targeted his own countrymen, who are to racked with avarice, but that's the way the cookie crumbled. But our "proactive" answer is to continue that policy, and (to his extremist followers) make his words not threats, but prophetic?