While I don't particularly agree with the theme of this TomPaine.com editorial, there is a nicely depressing -- and unfortunately apt -- quote from the late Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, at the Nuremburg trials:

Supreme Court Justice Robert L. Jackson, who was this country’s representative to the International Conference on Military Trials in August 1945 and the chief prosecutor at the Nuremburg war crimes trials, told his colleagues then that "we must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy."

One wonders how Jackson would have responded to the Iraq situation, or for that matter, any of these screwy post-cold war scenarios. If someone could suggest a way out of the Iraq situation that did not involve the use of force, and which would also keep our economy and national prestige from suffering profound damage, I'd like to hear about it.