AlaskaBoy:

It is clear you and I do not agree here. Unlike you, I would not stand by and wait for a ruler such as Saddam to take his very clear and very real use of chemical weaponry, and extend them to outside his own regions before taking action. This is not the same thing as saying he could have pointed and shot the United Sates on a whim at the time we finally did invade. Both the history and the threats of using such destructive power were clear and present, and that would have been enough for me to take him out. Further, this paradigm does not include an occupation and construction of an entire state. While the merits of establishing democracy go to the larger picture of global security, I believe that the Iraqi people are not deserving of, nor ready for such changes to take place, and ultimately taking out their despot was more than warranted.

I was trying to resist posting again, as I'd already offered my final salvo (which your further writings have confirmed for me), but I was struck by something you wrote-

You don't believe that the Iraqi people are deserving of democracy?

Who are you to decide who deserves democracy and what makes any one people more worthy of freedom than another? Thomas Jefferson said that all men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights? Apparently, you disagree.