As an American, I believe that the US public is being "softened up" (as the pundits seem to enjoy saying) for the prospect of a protracted war and/or occupation of Iraq. I don't think Bush will EVER just bomb Iraq and bring the troops home. The entire region the Bush administration is INVADING includes Afghanistan and Iraq, and both those countries were targeted for their location, location, location. The US is positioning itself militarily to take over the oil supplies in the region, and control not only the flow of oil, but to route the profits from it into the "right" pockets. That isn't the pockets of the House of Saud and the regime of Saddam Hussein, who the Bush administration views as the biggest obstacles to their being able to seize control of the world's oil supply.

I suppose some of you think the Venezualan "oil strike" is actually being waged by Venezualans too. The reason why the Bush administration doesn't give a rats ass about nukes in North Korea is they have no oil. Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil producer. Afghanistan is key to controlling the Caspian Sea oil and the routes to get it out. Iraq is the world's second largest oil producer. Once the US has control of those three sources of oil, it can bring the House of Saud to it's knees, which has been the plan all along. Once they have control of enough oil, the Bush administration doesn't need the Saudis, and can cut them loose as an ally and put them in the "axis of evil" box, which is where they belong anyway. Except we still need their oil, so we can't put them there.

Bush and Cheney are both oil men. Their administration is all about controlling the world's oil, and pushing through their draconian agenda that guts civil liberties, and rolls the clock back 50 years on social services for the poor, the disabled, for women, for minorities, and for immigrants. They are about greed, oil, and are without doubt the most malevolent, evil government on the planet today, pure and simple. My government makes me deeply and profoundly ashamed to be American.