Salon.com | Winning the battle against terror, losing the war of ideas

Damn! this article comes closest to how I feel about certain international incidents in the last twelve months. It certainly has helped me clarify how I feel about the probably necessity for beating the crap out of Saddam Hussein and his cronies, but the absolute despair that I feel when I consider the lack of adequate planning (even from my armchair analysts position) about what to do after the 'war' was won.

Makes me wonder if the people who planned this whole thing have even read some history books about the area ... but then, I'm reminded that there are stories that the 'Leader of the Free World' is supposedly known not to read anything more complicated than "The Reader's Digest" (which maligns that venerable magazine), so under-estimating the strength of feeling that others might have who don't share the same world-view is somewhat understandable.