>
> >There was an initial period of
> > stability in Iraq post invasion, but it has steadily deteriorated
> > since.
>
> There was never a period of stability. It was always bad and it continues
> to be bad. Look at the fatalities listed per month since the invasion 4
> years ago. There are a few peak months, but the overall trend is not for a
> major increase:
>

Strictly speaking, it you plot that data out and apply regression
analysis, there is an significant upward trend. And on top of that,
its a plot of US troop casualities which isn't an accurate measure of
stability. There are two different phases of the war, there was
initial invasion, and the current civil war. US Troops are not the
primary target of this civil war, the ethnic militias are fighting
each other and killing civilians. These numbers don't in anyway
reflect the intensity of the conflict currently going on.


> Bush the Smarter and his administration had the good sense to realize that
> it was in their best interests to leave Saddam in place in order to cancel
> out the Iranian threat.
>

Perhaps radical to say over here, but I've been confused as to why we
chose Sadam to take-out in the first place. He was a brutal dictator
to be sure, but that hasn't stopped us before. He was secular and his
motives easy to discern. He looks pretty good to me when compared
with the religious zealot running Iran, the kind of man you can deal
with.

> As a non American I really don't care about the rights of Americans. I am
> more concerned about the US invadeion of other countries, feeling free to
> identify and attack enemy forces and then taking captives and labelling
> them as "illegal combatants" and sending them to places like Gitmo where
> they thing they can deny them the rights afforded by American law, or
> deporting citizens of foreign countries to third countries to which they
> have outsourced torture.
>
>

Apologies, I mistakenly assumed......
As an American I am very concerned.

I think a large factor in our inability to actual capture Bin Laden,
is our concern for the stability of Pakistan and Musharaff's
precarious hold on the country. US forces storming in Pakistan and
roughing people up would not go over well and would risk destabilizing
yet another country in the region. That was the argument I was
waiting for that Rush-Limbaugh-fan to make, but of course, he doesn't
really have any understanding of the situation, he is simply armed
with little bits of propaganda.