Juan Cole, who I imagine many would count among the more serious and popular liberal bloggers, uses his selective memory to imagine what the U.S. would be like if it was suffering through a proportional level of violence as Iraq is going through now.

What if 3,300 Americans had died in car bombings, grenade and rocket attacks, machine gun spray, and aerial bombardment in the last week?

What if the grounds of the White House and the government buildings near the Mall were constantly taking mortar fire?

What if there were private armies totaling 275,000 men, armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!), rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the country?

OK - I'll play along...

What if the U.S. had been run by a brutal dictator who murdered millions of Americans and buried them in mass graves. What if millions of others had been imprisoned, tortured and had limbs, ears and tongues cut out on a whim? Wouldn't we be crying out for rescue?

What if 10 million Americans died in a 10-year war that ended in the same place it began?

What if the Everglades had been drained as political revenge against Floridians?

What if 500,000 Mormon men, women and children in Utah were gassed because they disagreed with the government?

What if the U.S. had invaded Mexico and claimed it as the 51st state, at the same time destroying their oil fields, raping their women and lobbing missiles into Canadian cities to incite them to fight?

What if, after the dictator had been overthrown, a mix of the dictator's loyalists, English, Australians, South Africans and English speaking peoples from all over the world came to blow up civilian installations and police stations as we were struggling to get back on our feet again?

And what if France, Germany and Russia denied our calls for help?

You know what - I didn't think it was possible, but now I'm more for the war in Iraq than ever. Thanks, Juan.