re: nambucca/us and australia will eventually lose
lrj, you posted: "Wasn't the Attack on Afghanistan pre-emptive? I may have missed it but I don't think the goverment of the day,the Taliban, invited the US to invade Afghanistan."
It wasn't pre-emptive, it was a response to the 9/11 outrage. If CIA received intelligence prior to 9/11 and had then acted to stop it by invading Afghanistan, that would be pre-emptive.
Don't get me wrong, Saddam has to go, but US/UK/Australia are burning a lot of bridges in the process. By all means apply strict and tight deadlines to Saddam, but the fact is the US will invade regardless of what Saddam does because it is a done deal. That is a worry.
As for the US being a benign superpower, by and large I agree, but a lot of precedents are being set at the moment. Unilateral action is all well and good when the superpower is benign, but will it always be thus?
And I stand by my statement that unilateral pre-emptive invasion of a Muslim sovereign state is stirring the hornet's nest.
