[mburbank]

Are you speaking of potential benefits? Because while I understand there's little else to speak of, I think we should try to keep ourselves realistic. The WOT could rsult in the complete annialation of all life on earth, or an earthly paradise. Neither seems likely.

My prediction isn't WWIII, although I think we lean more in that direction than a balanced world order, is a prolonged cluster fuck draining our coffers and strething the army to it's breaking point until the next presiential election. Then we will either try to extricate ourselves and refocus or go on an actual war footing. I wouldn't care to predict how either course would run, it depends on how much pojntless damage is done before then as we 'stay the course'.

I think my biggest disagreement with you is one of degree. Yes, wars are like bills and laws. But there's different degrees of bad. Like if I have an opperable cancer, that's bad, but it's nowhere near as bad as if a meteor strikes the town I live in, killing me and everyone within a hundred mile radius. This war has involved almost unmeasurable amounts of hubris and boobery, as opposed to the usual very large but quantifiable amounts of Boobery. It's not quite Little Bighorn or the Charge of the Light Brigade yet, but it's getting into the Soviets in Afghanistan territory in it's budget busting and it has a lot more capacity for widening.