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Well, I don't agree that we became more acutely aware of the potential dangers.

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Let's say you (or anyone) had had a bad fire at your house or place of business, but not so bad as to completey destroy everything. Wouldn't it be reasonable to expect that you would likely be more acutely aware of future potential fire hazards, or fire safety issues? In similar vein, after 9/11, we became more acutely aware of the potential dangers of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

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I think we used the excuse of 9/11 to get Hussein (and I think excuse is the perfect word). I think we can disagree about whether that was a good idea or not, but I don't think there's any question about the rationale. I've posted many times before about this, so I won't bore you with it again.

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Ok, we agree to disagreee on that, as I don't think it was primarily an "excuse.


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I'm only concerned about the "hierarchy of motivations" insofar as they affect policy. I saw only one possible reason to justify the invasion of Iraq, and that was humanitarian. The president said he didn't consider the cost in human lives, so there was no humanitarian consideration on his part.

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Unjustifiable conclusion about his motivations. Bush was quite disturbed about the evils perpetrated upon the Iraqi populace by Saddam's regime, and correctly asserted that removing Saddam would be a great relief from tyranny for the Iraqi people. So, Bush was concerned with the humanitarian issue; just because he didn't make a model of projected Iraqi casualties does not contradict this. As I posted before, merely knowing that anticipated Iraq casualties would be far less than in Gulf War 1, would be sufficient comparison in that regard.

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A president who says that, yes indeed, makes me worry about a hierarchy of motivations because I worry that his motivations will lead to bad policy. We all would like to see the world be a perfect place, but at what cost, and whose definition of perfection?

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Never mind perfection; that's not the point: a mere minimum standard of absence of true tyranny, of regimes not torturing and killing their own subjects for political purposes, should be a bare minimum standard to aspire to; and which needs no query about "whose definition of perfection." If free countries see a way to change the evil governmental tyrannies in other countries, they should seriously contemplate working towards that end, which on occasion may even entail war.

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The administration this week has essentially been saying you need us to protect you, trust us, we're doing the right thing. (After all, Mr. Cheney pointed out, we haven't been hit since 9/11.) Well I don't trust them. But maybe that's just me. It comes from a long history of watching the Kennedys and Johnsons and Nixons and Clintons betray our trust.

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I don't think citizens should blindly trust in any government or administration.