I'm pretty unhappy. For the second time in my short life, we've gone to war with that armpit of the world, Iraq. The question that gets me is why?

Most people's opposition to the war is based on the retardedly repetitive chant, "No blood for oil!" Ironically, if it were about oil, that would be a GOOD reason to go to war. If Iraq was threatening to cut off our supply of oil (assuming all of the substitutes in the North Sea, Venezuela, Ecuador, Indonesia, Mexico, Canada, and our own land were unavailable), that would devastate our economy. What better reason is there to go to war than to protect the well-being of every American citizen? That would clearly be protecting America's strategic interests and is a more than justifiable use of our military. The only problem is that fuel prices are low, Iraq isn't threatening our oil, and there are other substitutes for Middle Eastern oil (albeit more costly ones). So, it's not about oil.

What about these weapons of mass destruction? Again, they're no direct threat to our strategic interests. Pakistan, India, and North Korea all definitely have nukes (and probably other stuff too), and we're not going after them. Furthermore, North Korea is run by a total lunatic who could conceivably strike our soil. Saddam, prick that he is, strikes me as just sane enough not to try to hit us directly. Even if it takes a shot at Israel, that would be enough reason for us to nuke hum back. Of course, Israel has nukes too&ldots;

Well, what about those Al-Qaeda ties? I don't remember hearing Iraq ever tied to terrorist activity in the past. Libya, Syria, and Iran certainly are, but Iraq's sudden tie to Osama seems a little sudden. They may have some intelligence that I don't know about that proves Saddam has solid links to terrorism, but from where I'm sitting, it doesn't look like a good case.

What I'm afraid of is that it's an ego thing. I'm concerned that G.W.B. thinks he's finishing his dad's work by taking out Saddam. If that's the case, and then this whole war does not in the least serve American interests, and all of the lives lost will be a complete waste.

Of course, I'm no pinko hippie. Taking out the Taliban, which openly and brazenly supported Al-Qaeda, was WAY overdue. On top of that, Saddam Hussein is an evil prick whose death would vastly improve the world. The problem is, there are dozens of evil pricks who somehow became dictators of their countries, and if we went after all of them, we'd have to go to war with half the planet.

Furthermore, Iraqis don't know what the hell democracy is. They still live in tribal communities, for crying out loud. People forget that it took us CENTURIES to ditch the regal dictatorships, and even the U.S. was considered revolutionary for its time.

"But Japan and Germany didn't have any democratic traditions," says the nit-picker with a higher than average grasp of history (not much, but enough to be dangerous), "and we made them democratic!"

Yeah, well, we also bombed them back into the stone age over 6 years and killed 10%-30% of their populations. Once you do that, it's EASY to build a democratic society. If we carpet bombed all of Iraq's cities every day for the next half decade or so, It would be easy to stroll in there and create a democracy. I'm sure the half dozen or so people left will be grateful.

All in all, this seems like a bad idea. I hope our august leaders know what they're doing. Time will tell.