Good question from Jim Kunstler

Clusterfuck Nation by Jim Kunstler

The current rational for the war in Iraq (bringing freedom to the Iraqi people) is, if anything, much more transparently stupid that the Weapons of Mass Destruction argument that precipitated the war.

First, it raises the question: why should we give a fuck what Iraqis allow each other to do? We don't seem to give a fuck what strictures the people in Yemen or Syria live under. Or, for that matter, the people of Paraguay, Nigeria, Myanmar. Second the term freedom is a meaningless abstraction apart from institutions, concepts, and procedures designed to insure social justice, namely things like due process of law, separation of powers, sanctity of property, public safety, a consensual notion of the public interest, et cetera.
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Compared to these painful and convoluted assumptions, the issue of WMD looks much more straightforward, even if you grant that the Bush adminstration had made up its mind to invade earlier than 2003 -- to wit, the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found does not mean that we didn't have to look. Not finding any was always one of the possible outcomes, especially when Mr. Hussein had months to move things elsewhere. The public's refusal to understand this equation is an impressive case of obdurate stupidity, but not as dumb as our kindergarten ideas about spreading "freedom" to places where it means the right to kick our stupid American asses.