3000 soldiers fighting for the American army are dead, and the world is a better place for it. It's hard to understand. I don't really believe it inside myself, but it must be true, because the President said it is so. 3000 dead, and the world is a better place. And no matter how many more die, it's going to be okay, because that's the price we're willing to pay to capture a 75 year old scapegoat and put him in a cage, and kill him.

Of course that's only one small part of the payment. We've also paid with the blood of what may eventually exceed a million other people, few of whom could have been considered an enemy, but whose surviving friends and relatives must certainly be enemies now.

Yes, Saddam Hussein became ever more valuable, like the vanishing natural resource his country symbolizes. As his life grew shorter, the cost in blood and treasure spiraled exponentially higher. We have made him that valuable.

Just how valuable was Saddam? What exactly are we to pay for the pleasure of having one old man in a cage like a captive bear, kept alive for his bile, only to be killed when his bile proved not to be the cure for what ails us? Well, whatever we've had to pay, it must have been worth it. The Secretary of State has said it is so.

America's credibility. No country in its right mind can believe anything that comes out of Washington anymore, and only time will tell if this is the beginning of a long slow decline for America, or whether it will be able to remember the things that made it great, and by imitating its past somehow restore the patina of goodness that has always enabled its plans for guiding the unfolding of the world.

America's credibility, spent to make Saddam the most valuable man in the history of the world. Thank goodness we possessed him however briefly. He was a jewel of infinite worth, if it costs 3000 troops, and 600,000 civilians, and America's credibility. But, it is surely worth it, because the Secretary of Defense has said it is so.

Will we ever be able to tally just how valuable a man was Saddam Hussein? Probably not. Probably it will be a point of argument forever, a point where friends agree to disagree, but we can state with certainty that in order to put this man on our mantle, we've gladly spent our moral authority. Once the world leader in human rights, we didn't think twice about snuffing out the light that guided the world, we just did it. We discarded our respect for human rights and the rule of law, and we embraced kidnapping and torture. To get a guy that valuable, it was all worth it. The Attorney General has said it is so.

Human rights, America's credibility, 600,000 civilians, and 3,000 troops. And one more thing, a trifling consideration really, and the least of the costs, but just to be accurate it must be added into the total. Two trillion dollars, to be paid in the form of stumbling blocks handed out at birth to future generations of Americans. Add it all up, and it's hard to understand with your brain how the world could be a better place, but when the President speaks, I don't go with my brain, I go with my gut. Don't you? 3,000 soldiers dead, and the world is a better place.