I sympathise with two of malaysiakini's writers, Oon Yeoh and James Wong Wing oOn. They seem genuine in their belief that deposing Saddam Hussein is a positive good, and that Iraqis would be better off without him, as reflected in the former's Transitions weblog and the latter's articles.

Their reasoning for war isn't dissimilar to those of Tom Friedman of New York Times or of Christopher Hitchens, who famously left The Nation recently. For them, whether or not Saddam is linked to Osama bin Laden, and his Terror, Inc, the purported reason for war, isn't as important as the question, "Will the war be beneficial to the Iraqi people, and probably to the rest of the region?"

And, certainly, to be liberal doesn't necessarily mean o­ne should oppose war, come what may. I have always subscribed to the view that war could bring, and have brought, an overall improvement to many a wretched land, whether it was to post-Nazi Europe, in the past, or to Bosnia and Kosovo recently.

The world may have forgotten now, but it was the very failure of the United Nations to intervene in Rwanda in 1994, where almost o­ne million Tutsis were slaughtered - often hacked to death using machetes - by Hutus, that was considered contemptible.

In that regard, when the Bush administration declared war o­n Taliban in Afghanistan, many liberals, including people like Richard Falk, rallied to the call of war. (I even wrote a letter to that effect, War is Afghanistan's best chance, to malaysiakini.) Taliban is no more now; so are, by most counts, 4,000 or so innocent Afghanis blown to pieces or burnt to char while their nation was being delivered from evil.

Well, fine. Sometimes war, though cruel, is necessary; as long as what comes next could justify it.

But, alas, the post-war reconstruction efforts undertaken by the Bush administration in Afghanistan, to put it mildly, has been a total disappointment. Thanks to resistance by Pentagon, Afghanistan, without a nationwide peacekeeping force, has yet again fallen prey to warlordism.

More worryingly, the Bush administration didn't even ask for any money in 2004 for reconstruction efforts; and the Congress, embarrassed, put together a package worth US$300 million. Whatever happened to the promised 'Marshall Plan' for Afghanistan, we do not know.

And the case of Iraq, for that matter, is no better, either. The Bush administration has scarcely given thought to Iraq post-Saddam. As you may have guessed it, they didn't ask for any money for reconstruction efforts there as well. Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defence for Policy, said, while testifying in Congress few days back, apparently the situation is "unknowable" (notwithstanding the recently published estimates from Congressional Budget Office and the UN).

The truth of the matter is, if Iraq is to be transformed into a model and a beacon of democracy for the rest in the Mid-East, as preached by the likes of Friedman, the US must be prepared to remain engaged, and probably even fight a protracted defensive battle, for a long while. That would be costly - very, very costly. But the Bush administration, that has yet again set in motion another round of tax cuts, is simply unprepared for any sacrifice of that sort.

(And, unlike the legalists who forged the post-Nazi Germany and post-Hirohito Japan, the Bush administration has nothing but contempt for international legal instruments, humanitarian or otherwise.)

That does not mean, however, that the administration is foolhardy; it is, I think, quite clear in its objective - namely, overseeing the demise of Opec (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries). Such encomium is, therefore, more fitting for those liberals who believe war for 'hearts and minds' could be won with bullets and bombs.