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When the prevailing wisdom begins to get too loud and demanding I find it useful to take a step back and see what's really going on, after all about this time last year the prevailing wisdom was that the Iraq war was a quagmire when we were in fact right in the middle of the fastest, easiest, route in American history. BBC radio was reporting glorious Iraqi victories even as our tanks rolled through downtown bagdad only a few blocks away.

Iraq has become a big political football since the baby boomers (the only generation ever to lose a major American war) decided to relive their traumatic past and deny their children the victory that they couldn't achieve themselves -- not in reality mind you, but as Michael Moore would say, we live in fictional times with fictional presidents, fictional media and fictional documentary producers. A time when an amazing military victory with historically mind-boggling low casualty rates can be labeled a quagmire, defeat, or vietnam to political ends.

It's probably useful to remember than the majority of the 9/11 hijackers were saudi as were the planners. And it's probably also useful to remember that Iran is the biggest state sponsor of terrorism in the world. And of course we can't forget Syria's unyielding support for the palestinian terror groups that provide the seed for modern arab terrorism worldwide.

If you'll pull out a map you'll see Iraq sits sack dab on the border of all those states. Moreover, Iraq's vast oil reserves can make up for many eventualities in our overall war on terror. Meaning if it becomes necessary to enforce a regieme change in Iran to end their support for terrorism then Iraq can make up the shortfall in world oil supplies while Iran's oil is offline. If we decide Saudi Arabia needs sanctions to enforce reforms, for the first time in modern history we have the oil reserves to boycott saudi oil.

That gets lost in the "WMD -- (cough) discussion (cough) --" because our leaders can't really point out the military strategic benefit Iraq holds in prosecuting the war on terror. Well lets call it what it is -- the war on islamic arab radicals. After all it's highly rude to point out to our Saudi "friends" that we have half a million troops on their border and the oil reserves to cover us if we need to go in and do the housecleaning they won't. Nobody can say it out loud, but the Saudi government has become **REMARKABLY** helpful on the War on Terror since we became their neighbor -- not BEFORE we became their neighbor, after.

Moreover, much has been made that our troops are being attacked almost daily in Iraq, but there is more than solid proof that those attacks are being organized, planned, and executed by Al Qauida and their affiliates. That is, our military is fighting our enemy on their soil, not ours. And in military terms that is a very good thing. And yes we've suffered casualties but so have they, not only have they not won any strategic, moral, or political victories but they have been beaten, harrassed, captured, routed, and killed.

In military terms, Iraq's strategic position in the war on terror makes it the perfect base of operations. Taking out an international pariah guilty of massive human rights abuses was merely a bonus. Even if Iraq was pristinely innocent of the WMD charge that mattered no more in the tactical sense than the little island nations America overran as it slugged its way to Japan to WWII.

Just something to think about the next time you hear about WMDs for the billionth time on the evening news.

Well done, pcx99. Your post should be stapled to the foreheads of the lefty journalists who pollute our airways each evening. Perhaps then they'd get it... (I doubt it, though).

"Strategery" Ain't it wunnerful!

If you'll pull out a map you'll see Iraq sits sack dab on the border of all those states.

Amazing how great minds think alike!
I keep telling people to look at a map. You don't think the President just pulled Iraqs name out of a hat.