Another Rant.

My crotchetyness rises to a new level during election season. (And, is it just me, or do we seem to always be in election season.) There are complicated issues out there, and they deserve serious consideration, and what we get are inane oversimplifications.
What set me off today was a letter to the editor in the morning paper complaining that the Iraq war was a bad war, because it was just about the oil. Well of course it was about the oil! Could Saddam Hussein have invaded Kuwait without his country's oil wealth; would he have done it without wanting Kuwait's oil. Could he have flaunted U.N. sanctions without his oil. And to all of that, would we have cared, if not for the oil?
To me, the first problem with Iraq, is that we launched a preemptive war, based on intelligence that has proved to be false. The second problem, is that we fell flat on our faces in dealing with the consequences of the collapse of the government. The third problem is, now that we're up the buffalo's ass, how do we get out.