World better sans Saddam

  *  The president and numerous of his apologists brag that the world is a better place without Saddam. Indeed the world would be a better place without Saddam, had he lost power by any process other than our invasion of Iraq.
  *  The list of people for whom the world is better seems much shorter than the list of people for whom the world is worse. Is the world better or worse for: American soldiers killed or maimed in Iraq, or their families; Iraqi citizens killed, maimed, deprived, inconvenienced or ethnically cleansed in Iraq, or their families; neighboring countries coping with Iraqi refugees? Is unleashed ethnoreligious strife and cleansing better for Iraq than strong-man secular antitheocratic government where Shiites and Sunnis could be peaceful neighbors and intermarry? Is America better off having squandered goodwill, prestige and moral leadership? Are we better off with with massive additions to the federal debt, massive additions to our negative trade balance, rising middle- and working-class anxiety, little progress in development of green energy or energy conservation, contempt for us around the world, wider and deeper hatred of us in parts of the world, a bigger arena for perfecting terrorist technology and organization, a fatigued and degraded military with no prospect of victory or relief? Are Republicans better off having their political tricks, self-righteousness, elitism, cynicism and hypocrisy exposed, having produced an administration of intellectual Lilliputians that would involve us in an unjust war? Are Democrats better off having to disengage us from chaos not of their making? Are Africa, Latin America and the middle east better off with unrestrained population expansion combined with deteriorating natural support systems?
  *  One could reasonably suspect that the Iraq war did more harm than good and distracted us from opportunities to make the "world a better place".