[alexamenos]

I don't know that I can guarantee this, but I'd say it's likely that much of our armed forces will be slaughtered....picture Napoleon in Waterloo....much of the logistical lines supporting folks in baghdad and beyond run right through the heart of shia occupied (and Iran allied) southern Iraq....when those lines are completely cut, which they most certainly will be, the troops will be sitting ducks. you can comfort yourself in knowing that they'll kill a lot of folks before they get killed themselves, but it's small compensation if you ask me.

I can guarantee this much -- if we launch an unprovoked attack on Iraq we will rightly be judged as the bad guys of history -- like the Nazis in Poland who claimed they were just defending the fatherland.....

also...if such an attack is carried out without a congressional declaration of war, then we can safely give up even the pretense of the rule of law subject to the US Constitution or anything resembling a representative democracy and say that the US Government has become an out of control behometh, hell bent on asserting it's will regardless of the wishes or consequences to the people it ostensibly serves....

heaven forbid, it will be among the saddest days in American History, and the lingering consequences will be far more dire than anything caused by a handful fo Saudi Arabians with box cutters.

but hey, if sacrificing the rule of law, and perhaps the United States (as it has existed as a relatively free and civilized country) is what it takes to guarantee that no middle-easterner ever again does anything bad to another middle-easterner, then who am I to say that this is a profoundly foolish thing to do.

cheers