Jimmy, thanks for posting the link instead of cutting and pasting and pretending that you wrote the piece.I read one of Taheri's books years ago. I think it was called Nest of Spies, about Iranian contemporary history, including the British and US-engineered coups which installed the Shah (1954, i think).You may also find the work of Frank Smyth enlightening. He "embedded" himself in a rebel column in the aftermath of Gulf I and has a very unique and strong perspective.I for one had no illusions about Hussein. In fact, i remembered that Amnesty International went to lobby the first Bush administration, before the Kuwait invasion, met with Brent Scowcroft and asked that they curtail the military relationship but Bush I saw no problem with the close relationship. You may recall that it was Reagan and Bush who strengthened Hussein significantly, even providing him apparently with chemical weapons. You may also recall that this was because Hussein was doing Washington's bidding by bleeding Iran.So a straw man is set up: the assumption is that an atni-war position was a pro Saddam position. Nope.I don't care for the regime in North Korea but i don't think a military invasion is the best way to go about it.IN the Saddam situation, please remember that the reason we went to war was over weapons of mass destruction. The American public would not have gone along for an unprovoked war in order to spread democracy. Surely you know that? The Administration scared the pants off the public and so the public went along with the war.Once no weapons were found, once no link to al Queda was found (and before the link was created in the nasty quagmire), then and only then did the Administration started to talk about spreading democracy.Clearly, those were weapons of mass distraction.And at the inaugural, Bush spoke of spreading freedom arounf the world, however the next week or so, the newspapers were full of Administration disclaimers saying that there wouldn't really be any change. The visit with Putin confirmed that - nope, no change, coddling with dictators as usual, as long as they do "our" bidding.Which is not to say that it will be great if democracy can spread and human rights and human freedoms can be respected throughout. But if their so-called champion is busy torturing detainees and rendering prisoners to countries with the full knwoeldge that they willbe tortured and keeping people with out charges for years in legal limbo, well, that doesn't quite compute, does it.So yes, straw man, being anti war equals supporting Hussein. Which is of course a total crock. I don't doubt that there are people who might think that. I don't. And i doubt most of the marchers thought that either.What we do realize is that this Administration is cynically manipulating a lot of well-intentioned people, telling them that what they're doing is spreading freedom, when in fact, what they're really after is the oil.