Opinion on Iraq War: Late Stages

It has become increasingly clear that the main justification by the Bush administration for going to war with Iraq was to bring the war against terrorism whatever that really is to the Middle East, to Iraq, rather than to fight terrorism within our own borders. Oil mattered but not as much as the Neo-Con dream of the USA running the world but calling it democracy or democratic reform. It didn't matter that the country chosen to pursue these Machiavelllian ends was not one of the countries in the Middle East from which terrorism was emanating. It also did not matter that innocent civilians In Iraq would in large part be the victims of this military venture and that the country would be brought to the brink of civil war, although some think there is already a civil war happening between the Sunnis and the Shiites.

One question that could be raised is Did the ends justify the mean ?, (Gee I like mean better than means, in this case) , in other words, did going to war with Iraq make terrorism go away from US shores? At the same time, the administration states we are achieving our goals in Iraq, the administration warns us constantly that we are just around the corner from a major attack on the USA. Can they have it both ways or have all the Bush foreign policy goals re Iraq ended up in disarray? Yes, I know there is all that talk about bringing democracy to Iraq and both Democrats and Republicans for the War do point to the elections and drawing up of a constitution that happened last month (nov 05) as an important step in this direction. It seems there has been a trade off of a dictatorship of Saddam Hussein that has been abolished instead for a fake type of democracy with unceasing violence and death and the use of a country for another country's ends and means which are to pacify a citizenry far away made afraid and whipped up by fear using 9/11 as the catalyst for starting the war, keeping it going, and now justifying its continuation.

Where will it all end? The country is waking up from its long sleep on this question. The troops will be pulled out but many will still stay in the region watching the action from nearby borders I would guess. In the end, everything the pundits against the War predicted will have come true: Further destabilization of the Middle East, a post Viet Nam kind of depression will set in; and, Afghanistan will still not have gotten rid of the Taliban and Al Quaeda which is what I thought this fight was all about in the first place.