[John Kilduff]

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"How convenient for the neo-conservatives that 9/11 came along"

I believe that the war in Iraq would have occurred without 9/11 and that 9/11 was an excuse, not the reason, for the war.

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Agreed.

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That said, are you implying anything beyond that with "how conveient"?

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Not in the slightest. As we both agree, some sort of justification would have been manufactured or maneuvered to, just like the last 50 US military interventions. It's just that Osama bin Laden served them up the perfect justification for perpetual war on a spent-uranium platter.

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The timing seems a bit odd, perhaps.

In Iraq, the justification for war now extends to keeping the peace and democratic nation-building, likely an impossible and perpetual task, considering the various Iraqi factions' animosities for each other and their struggles for power.

It also worth noting that bin Laden merely took the lukewarm war Islam was already waging against the West, and made it hotter. The recent stages of this war have been building for a few decades, but truthfully, since the time of Muhammad Islam has always been at war against the West, albeit in widely varying temeratures. The West, though, has only sometimes been at war with Islam.

What disturbs me most about the whole scenario is the Neo-Cons' faith in America's ability to rapidly transform the Middle East and to remake it in a Western democratic image. In simple terms, it just "ain't gonna happen." Yet the Neo-Cons would have us waging war there in perpetuity, eternally in search of an ephemeral goal, and at ever-increasing expenses, losses, and debts.

In sum, I think it is fair to say that the Neo-Cons are well into the process or ruining America - and I do mean literally ruining, both economically and otherwise.