Christopher Hitchens has a book out called A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq, in which he makes a case for getting rid of Saddam. It really isn't a book, but a collection of essays that he put out back in the months ending 2002. I haven't finished it yet, the reading is slow and tedious even though it is just over 100 pages.

What he says make sense, that there were many reasons to depose him, and there is nobody sensible that would argue these points. I still cannot bring myself to agree with him that the execution of the whole ordeal could ever have been perceived as being worth the effort. My biggest beef with it is that it is US operations with token support from a few countries. We don't belong in a country halfway around the world, taking care of their problems while neighboring countries sit by with their thumbs up their asses. Our goal should have been to bolster support for a unified effort. I believed in the beginning that it wasn't just about the terrorists or the threat of an Iraqi dictator taking things beyond his borders, it was more about how the people with the money could squeeze more out of the results.

A big argument for what we have done is that the world is better off without Saddam. I really can't say that is true, I see islamists all over the world taking up against the 'infidels', and I'm not sure it would be as bad as it is now had we done things differently. Of course, I also realize that I know a little more about it now, I've been paying more attention, and that because if this it may only seem that the islamists are more agitated.

What bothers me now about it is the cost, in lives and the deficit that grows every year. And then there is the instability, but then again, that could be due to the change in perception on my part.

In my opinion, this administration has done nothing more than grease the skids for situations that made it easy for companies to suck even more money from the taxpayers. American contractors have gained much during this conflict. They took the government's money, money we don't have, to 'rebuild' in Iraq. Now, they are there providing services to the US military, and the longer we are there, the more it will cost us to pay our own companies for the support that the military no longer provides for itself. Then of course there is all the spending we are doing in our own back yard that has contributed to our debt.

This debt still has to be accounted for, but when the shit finally hits the fan in that respect, the money will have to come from somewhere, and our government, both Congress and the administration, has seen to it that the people that took our money in the first place, that have been reaping what rewards have been available, will be able to skate out of paying much of anything when the losses start rolling in. They will hoard the profits of the last six years secure against any taxation in way too many loopholes, and then claim the losses that will be incurred when the economy goes to shit - a situation they have been contributing to all the while. I think Cheney and people like him tout war because of the financial benefits it brings to business, and their justification is the 'trickle down' that everyone talks about but that won't do us any good when we eventually have to pay the bill. It would work, except for the fact that businesses are too willing to suck us dry, an effort that Congress has supported with all the spending they have done.