[Gambit]

Very good point about America being responsible for the amount of power available to Saddam, Ath, and of course the way we backed out last time always stings!

But Saddam didn't personally use those chemical weapons, did he? Someone develops them, someone builds them, someone ships them, someone deploys them. There's a lot of choices in there. True, if you're caught, the penalties would be severe. It would have taken a lot of careful manuvering and planning to successfully overthrow him from within. So instead, some people defected, or otherwise fled the country. Some took advantage of the situation so they could be a bully for a while.

But how'd Saddam get there? By brute force and intimidation, mostly, but still people decided to support or follow him. He was a hit man who got into politics! The choices necessary to stop him early would have been easier to make.

Obviously, no individual younger than his presidency bears responsibility for his ascendency, and the vast majority of the population didn't put him there either.

But the nation as a whole DOES have responsibility. If I elect a representative who votes against a proposed law I want, am I responsible for that decision? Partly. If I live in a country that does NOT have a representative government, and I continue to go about my daily life and pay my taxes, am I responsible for the decisions of that government? Partly. I could, instead, leave the country, civilly disobey the laws, spark a revolt, or any number of other things to hinder or even bring down this government if it does things I don't like. I don't say it would be easy. It sure wasn't easy for Washington, Jefferson, and company to rise up against their king, but they did it anyway and so today we can, without cost, vote out leaders we don't like. But it did cost someone, somewhere. "...our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor..."

Analyzing these issues always makes me awfully glad to be an American!

Oh, and Stang, a lot of the stuff we'll HAVE to rebuild is infrastructure. Like the phone systems, television facilities, and such that we destroyed.