The thing that has me perplexed comes from a consideration of the claim (which I accept) that we (the US) "made" the Baath party.

Acknowledging that, what do we do about it now?

We can do exactly what we're doing. But why, if Iraq is so bad, does the administration need to willfully distort the facts of the situation? I don't buy your claim that the American public "isn't up for critical thinking." Hogwash. We're up for--and we deserve--straight talk. There's nothing wrong with our country acknowledging past mistakes. It doesn't even take critical thinking for Rumsfeld to come out and say, "Hey, you know what? I wish we hadn't supported a guy we knew was a terrible bastard, just because we thought he could help us get rid of the Ayatollah. And fuck, man, hindsight is 20/20, but I sure wish we would have helped the Iraqis we encouraged to rise up against Saddam. That would have been great. But now we've got to go in and--at great cost to me, you, and the soldiers--clean up our mess. Sorry, America. Our bad."

Instead, we get these ridiculous--and God, do I mean Ridiculous--statements from the administration (particularly the president) about good vs. evil, people hating us because we love freedom, blah blah blah. "Gordian" is a good word for the knot we're in, but it was tied by design, not by accident, and refusal to acknowledge that doesn't solve anything.

I guess what I'm saying is that me pointing out that the administration's case is disingenuous, and thereby suspicious, in no way implies that we shouldn't DO anything. Only that we have every right (responsibility?) to question the motives of known liars.