Iraq-war runup

From Bush's announcement of Iraq-war contemplation through the invasion, my thoughts were:
a) This appears to be Karl Rove's way to stifle conversation about Bush's alleged crimes at Harken Energy and to ensure Republican victory in the mid-term elections.
b) Bush's reasons for invading Iraq are improbable and unproven, and congress should insist on proof. We don't condemn criminal suspects without proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
c) We have no right to invade now, even if Bush's reasons were true, as there is no immediate threat.
d) Zero tolerance for potential harm to us can become terrorism by us.
e) It might be unwise to overturn one of the few anti-theocratic governments in the middle east.
f) Saddam won't live forever, and we can wait and see what Iraqis do after his death.
g) We and our allies were complicit or compliant in many of Saddam's crimes enumerated to stir up support for war.
h) Some of his crimes could be viewed as attempts to "Save the Union", the Iraqi union, and might have been committed by Lincoln if the relevant weapons existed in the 19th century. The casualty numbers were comparable.
i) Making war on a country that does not clearly and immediately threaten us encourages other countries to act likewise, which is a step backwards for civilization.
j) Fear of being labeled soft on national security may have caused many in congress, like John Kerry, to vote authorization for war, against their consciences.
k) Bush's claim, that Saddam could avoid invasion by proving the absence of WMD, is cynical, as is not possible to prove the absence of something, and Saddam isn't interfering with UN inspectors.
l) Cheney's predictions about the invasion and occupation exhibit a gross ignorance of human nature.
m) How sad to see Colin Powell, a courageous patriot, sell the UN on allegations that he must surely doubt.
n) Rumsfeld's bluster and pride about shock and awe reveal a lack of ethics, and his referring to Iraqis defending their homeland during the invasion as terrorists reveals rabid dishonesty.
o) Wearing flack jackets in 120 F temperates with sandflies all around will exhaust our troops, patrolling the streets with ambiguities about who is a threat will demoralize our troops and the prospect of these experiences will degrade recruitment.
p) Many thousands of innocent Iraqis will suffer and die because of our invasion and occupation, and that weighs negatively in the ethical equation, against any good that might be done. We have no right to sacrifice some Iraqis for the sake of others.
q) Sudden regime change in Iraq will likely lead to ethnic revenge, civil war, balkanization, enhanced terrorist recruitment and/or emergence of a theocratic or dictatorial police state.
r) Civil war in and balkanization of Iraq will trouble its neighbors.
s) Why aren't journalists asking the awkward questions?
t) Why aren't Christians discussing the ethics of elective war?
u) Why did Republicans, my fellow Americans, my fellow Christians and the Supreme Court give us a president so ill prepared to consider these matters?
v) We Christians need to think more about Jesus' goals - a happier and more peaceful civilization.
w) Why did my fellow Americans and fellow Christians condemn the French for declining to participate in an unjust war?
x) Civilization will be better when we all become suspicious of and bridle our tribal instincts.
y) The checks and balances of our representative system of government is failing to prevent irrational policies. The Karl-Rove/Rush-Limbaugh/Grover-Norquist/Tom-DeLay factor is too strong; the Garrison-Keiller/Al-Frankin/Robert-Reich/Leonard-Pitts factor is too
weak.
z) How would we feel if a few populous countries like China, India and Indonesia (about 3 billion people) formed a coalition to improve the United States - having concluded that we are a dangerous and unaccountable loose canon with an appetite for war, that we are self-indulgently wasting the worlds resources and polluting air and sea by driving SUVs, building suboptimally insulated McMansions for few inhabitants, that we are making policies to further enrich the rich and exploit the poor, resulting in a widening wealth gap, that our health-care system is wrong-headed, that we are not willing to pay for what we insist on getting, that we are hypocritical in our dealings with the third world, that our government has been corrupted by plutocrats and kleptocrats? That may all be true, but we would resist them with our lives. Would our resistance fighters be terrorists?