I don't see the connection. Socialism is an economic system. What has that to do with saying the president of the United States should honor international accords signed by his predecessors, and should be honest about the reasons for this war?

My post was mostly in response to Wolf's use of the phrase "socialist progaganda." Yes, some Americans do advocate varying degrees of socialism, but their "propaganda" is not widely available to the masses except in discussions of healthcare. The million or so Americans who marched last week to protest Bush's war were not there out of a profound belief in domestic economic reform. It's far more likely they felt it was wrong to bomb people who never did anything to us.

I suspect Wolf didn't really mean Socialist: from context, it seems he was using it as a generic buzzword for "un-American," as in anyone who thinks that citizens in a democracy should speak out against a dishonest (or, at best, unwise) president.

Yes, it's possible to support this particular war from an ends-justify-the-means standpoint. However, democratic countries founded on the rule of law aren't supposed to embrace this kind of Old West vigilantism. What about the next war? Bush is clearly willing to lie and cheat to justify taking over any country whose leader he finds morally objectionable, regardless of whether it violates the U.S.'s contractual agreements and whether or not it will rally extremists to join anti-American movements. Here's hoping for a viable Democratic candidate in 2004. (Or a viable Republican with a different world view than George Junior's.)