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Neutone, are you familiar with what constitutes a casus belli? The US has had long-standing casus belli to go into Iraq. Every time they fired a missile at our planes after the cease-fire, they created another one. They sheltered terrorists who had killed Americans. We don't know for sure what contact existed between Saddam and Al Queda, but we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the Iraqi government publicly admitted to sheltering other terrorists responsible for killing American citizens. Tariq Aziz held a frigging PRESS CONFERENCE about it while Saddam was still in power.
You say Iraq was a war based upon lies. Yet the recent CIA report documented at least 56 cases of our finding 1980's vintage WMDs in Iraq. Was Saddam producing WMDs during the 1990s? Best guess, no. Did Saddam still possess WMDs from his 1980's stockpiles? Well, they've found 56 so far, so that would be "YES". Did Saddam maintain the technology and the desire to produce WMDs? According to the report, yes, he did, and he was waiting for sanctions to be lifted to do so. The report stated that it would have taken him weeks to months to reconstitute WMD production. And Saddam was very actively working to get those sanctions lifted, by bribing damn near everybody in sight.
As far as our world-wide image, the "ugly American" stereotype has been around for decades. We're largely seen as spoiled, uncultured, lard-asses, and have been seen that way for a very, very long time. So before you say that Bush has made us globally disliked, please explain how the long-existing "ugly American" stereotype meant we were LIKED beforehand. Thanks.
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