(I feel a minor bout of sarcasm in my future....This note is for the benefit of those who might be less likely to recognize it than you....)

I don't think it's about taking comfort, because war, no matter what, isn't comfortable.

You have probably (correctly) concluded that Yasimina is fictional. I felt a need to invent *some* young innocent Iraqi, though, as I am afraid that none of them are likely to make it to CNN.com with their picture, hometown, etc.

This military strategy is about doing what's best for the largest amount of people.

Ah, so finding WMD and frustrating terrorism have been placed on the back burner, have they?

My original statement (and, I think, the origin of this particular tangent) adds the caveat that, on some level, I believe American military lives are more precious than lives of civilians,

If you can't tell, this "sliding scale" of relative worth that you have put forward still disturbs me. I mean, once we have put any of our reservations aside about the justifications for this invasion and are fully committed to "Support Our Troops!", who gets to decide what the ratio is? Is it 1-to-5? 1-to-100? or maybe 1-to-200?

especially if those civilians aren't doing everything they can to get out of the way.

Like Yasimina was going to hop in the Mercedes with her mom and zip across the desert for a brief vacation in Lebanon?

In the long run, any threat to a small number of civilians is a consequence of the effort to benefit all the people in Iraq, not just those of the Ba'ath party and those who support them.

Hmmm. Again, I thought this was all about WMD.

I have to ask: What would have been the negative consequences if we had delayed this 6 months -- had a little more parlay with the countries whose support we *said* we wanted? How about 12 months?

Some people (conspiracy theorists, no doubt) suggest that the US was happy to turn the screws on the UN -- either get the rubber stamp we demanded or weaken the UN -- a win either way.

Interesting snippet from an article in this week's New Yorker (Nicholas Lehmann "How it Came to War") that quotes an interview with Richard Haass of the State Department: "There was a moment...[in] the first week of July [2002] when I had a meeting with Condi [Rice]...and I raised this issue about were we really sure that we wanted to put Iraq front and center at this point, given the war on terrorism and other issues. And she said, essentially, that the decision's been made, don't waste your breath."

July 2002. Take what you like from this. For me, it just confirms the feeling that the decision to invade was a done deal long ago and that all of the dancing around about WMD, terrorism links, UN resolutions, and weapons inspections were immaterial as regards the outcome.

Also in that issue, Seymour Hersch's recap on how the administration falsified* "proof" of Iraqui nuclear capability (and did a laughably bad job of it at that....What, you say that 98 percent of Rush listeners still consider this fabrication to be the gospel truth? I'm shocked!)

(edit: *saying "the adminsitration falsified" the Niger uranium documents is going beyond what Hersch, or the evidence, can firmly prove. What is not in dispute is that they used falsified documents as a lynchpin to leverage congressional acquiesence on an Iraq war.)