>>Why? You seem to be supporting the position of how much better Iraq is now. Why did we have to do that at the cost of 2,000 US lives to date, with thousands of other permently injured/maimed?
>>
>I do, and I will continue to do so. Regardless of whether WMD's were there or not, Hussein went to a lot of trouble to convince the world that he still had them. He was a threat, pure and simple, and needed to be removed.

The US has WMD's. George Bush has attacked more countries that Saddam Hussien did. Let's liberate Americans.

>Better we fight them there, than on our own soil.

Show me any proof that the US is safer from terrorists before and after the invasion of Iraq. Going in and engagin the insurgents in a way the the US can
t seem to win, can only embolden them and sharpen their skills.

> the Middle East (outside of Iraq) is same same from before we went in...a cluster of unstable dictatorships with unguided revolution festering in the population.

You've got to be kidding. Show me another middle eastern country with as much fighting as Iraq. It is the most unstable in the region.

>The Islamic extremists hated us before...before Iraq, before Afghanistan, before 9/11. And they will continue to do so unless the imbalance between haves and have-nots over there is solved. Democracy is the only way that the Arab street is going to get a grip on their problems. Someone has to help them build it.

After all this, how did you and I end up with the same conclusion?