[Billthedrill]

It's been a good evening for real meat here on FR, between the Ralph Peters article and this one by Christopher Hitchens. While I would caution the latter against an over-reliance on the Noriega point - Saddam has, in fact, proven quite difficult to apprehend if he's still alive - the bulk of the article is relentlessly accurate.

One is left with the impression that Bush fils has embarked on an absurdity - that a modern representative government may be established over the bones of a vicious despotism despite the desperate resistance of the latter's apologists and fellow-travelers, first by force of arms and then by force of persuasion. Everything in that is entirely topsy-turvy. We'll probably pull it off, and what is most terrifying to both the radical Islamicists and to an equally ossified Old Europe is what the world is going to look like when we do. Bismark and Richelieu would be groaning, but Franklin would be laughing. Interesting times.

[Stultis]

but Franklin would be laughing

Not only that, but he'd probably be going toe to toe with Bechtel and Halliburton for reconstruction contracts too, God bless'm!

[NutCrackerBoy]

The bulk of the article is relentlessly accurate.

Real meat, indeed. I love how Hitchens rakes through the still-smoldering arguments of the left.