Unfortunately, if we did that, I predict that food purchases from the US would plummet.

What I said about the Iraq invasion at the time and still stand by was that even though I didn't vote for Bush, I was willing to take on trust his and Cheney's statements about secret intelligence they had and that they had properly prepared for the invasion and had sufficient cause. But, I said, if they messed it up, it was their responsibility.

Unfortunately, they did mess it up and didn't fully tell the truth about the intelligence they had at the time and didn't prepare properly for the invasion, which I still think would have succeeded if enough troops had been made available and if they hadn't made so many tactical errors such as firing the whole army and all people in the Baathist party.

No matter what side of the political spectrum you are on, it is hard to point to successes from the current administration. Fortunately, no matter who wins the coming election, it will be a big improvement.

In the meantime, we have to suffer through the kinds of problems that anyone would have after turning the government to complete amateurs for 8 years. The problem isn't that they are conservatives or that they are Republicans. The problem is that they have had no idea what they were doing.

Can the next administration recover from their errors? Good question.

seconded Mara. good post texrat.

A little "fuel" for the fire... http://www.time.com/time/business/ar...0.html?cnn=yes

I wish Off Topic had thanks button, I would surely Thank Texrat's post.

In general, I think that talking about what the "real" motive about any objective pursued by a bunch of people is fallacious. You have certain groups in the Bush administration that had one objective and some that had others. They managed to focus on a certain objective: taking Iraq. And in that objective, they failed pretty miserably, though I still have hopes that it will come right after much wasted effort, money, and lives.

Certainly it didn't deliver cheaper gas.

The Time article was correct, in that nothing we do short-term is going to head this problem off; we became too dependent on foreign oil and now must live with it. But I think that we will recover eventually.

And as someone suggested, what about driving slower? I actually liked the 55 mph limit when it was in effect, because I was always driving pieceajunk cars and I thought that other drivers didn't realize what a risk they would be taking if I had been driving any faster.

Thank you Texrat and Sungrove.

What still gets me is that there were a substantial number of Americans who knew the administration was lying and cherry-picking intel, but we were drowned out or just plain ignored.

...and yeah, let's drive slower, (safely) hyper-mile, and bicycle whenever we can.

I haven't heard anyone portray it that way... at least it's no longer ridiculous on its face as the simplistic notion is. It's a grand scheme indeed, and I wouldn't say the oil is to be gained in the short term, from a political perspective; while it's ugly enough if it plays out as you suggest, it seems more probable that power switches hands to someone not interested in it, which would make it even uglier...

I hope that "nothing but" is mere hyperbole? At best, you might claim a few lies, some distortions, and some misemphases. (And, the way I see it, any notions the Iraqi government promoted regarding the existence of its weapons programs, whether lies or not, are to be taken as fact. Bluffing by pretending to have a gun gets you shot; a tragedy, I'm sure, but maybe the next guy won't do it.)

Please do not confuse supporting the invasion with supporting whatever ensues; it's possible to believe that the invasion was right, and still should have been carried off altogether differently. There are two sane approaches available, and it seems we took neither the hardline "flatten the place and leave; if whatever new government arises doesn't learn the lesson, we'll flatten them in 20 years" nor the "make it a US territory until they're ready, then let them run it", but a middle course that didn't work well either way. And, even granting your statement of present fact regarding effects of continued occupation, it doesn't follow that all courses and durations of occupation have that effect.

Finally, I also take issue with the notion that fostering hatred is a bad thing, or at least a serious enough bad thing to invalidate the war. As long as the US is a better place to live than a thugocracy, the thugs in question will do their best to convert the resulting envy into hatred, so they don't get overthrown. (The principal alternative, of course, is to let the people try to get their own piece of success by establishing a free society and limited government. Thugs don't like that.) So there'll be plenty of hate toward the US to go around, as long as we're ahead, and we'll always be ahead while we're free. A little more or less doesn't matter. What does matter is inspiring an equal measure of fear in those that hate us, and nuking (so to speak) those that get too big a threat. There's no world cop to take care of such things, so we have to stand up for our own interests, and stand demonstrably stronger than our enemies.

Of course not, but invading Iraq does not involve trading freedom; to paint with an exceeding broad brush, I'm "with" Bush on foreign policy, and "against" on domestic policy.

You're of course entitled to your assessment, but the PNAC manifesto alone is enough IMO.

You're kidding, right?

I thought that was common knowledge...

But since it apparently wasn't, here's some other advice which I haven't heard lately (as many of the dispensaries of driving advice are more concerned about safety and/or obeying the law, and merely bring up finances to make you care about it...):

If you're coming up to a curve at say, 55 mph, and you can make it around at 45, taking it at 45 instead of backing off to your customary 20, saves gas*...

Honestly, one of the best things you can do in shopping for a standard (not electric, hybrid, or diesel) car is to go with a little sports car, with the smallest available engine, and just don't use all the acceleration available. You'll get a standard transmission (better gas mileage (although not as much these days, thanks to lock-up torque converters), and more fun), a small engine, a light-weight car, and... you don't waste so much energy braking for corners! Had a little MX-3 with the 1.6l l4 engine (also available with a 1.8l v6, and some people swap in the 2.5l v6...), and driving with an eye to mileage, but no real hypermiling techniques, and running the speed limit (55mph max, along my route), I got 37+ mpg consistently; a couple times I broke 40, when I was real careful with coasting up to stop lights so they turned green before I stopped.

*Net petroleum savings may vanish if you take it hard enough to squeal the inside tires; tire tread is made from oil, too...