Happy Anniversary?

This month marks the third anniversary of Our Great Adventure in Preemption, the doctrine that we can send in the troops and/or bomb the bejesus out of anyone we don't like under the excuse that we're "pre-empting an attack." Or, to use a sporting metaphor, the best defense is a good offense.

But it tends to make people distrust you, and they might seek out others who feel just as distrustful of your motives, and when they have enough people arrayed against you, you find that striking first really has very little meaning.

It's after the Ides of March, and I haven't seen any victory parades to mark the occasion of Our Glorious "Mission Accomplished" Victory over those dastardly Iraqis and their weapons of mass destruction.

Oh, wait. Yeah, my bad - there were no WMDs.

So we celebrate our defeat of a tyrannical regime that had links to al-Qaeda and was connected to the 9/11 disaster, right?

Afraid not.

So we're celebrating bringing democracy and peace to Southwest Asia at the point of a bayonet and the muzzle of a gun?

Yes!

Hooray! We're fighting a War For Peace! Drinks all around!