Of course war is "nuanced." We live in a world of ongoing death, disease and starvation. None of that is going to end tomorrow, so all we can struggle over is "nuance" and relatively better or worse results.
I don't think war per se is evil in a world where violence is endemic. I'm not a complete pacifist, even if I think most aggressive war has more costs than benefits. A Bush regime fighting to turn Iraq into a Halliburton subsidiary and local military base to dominate the region is a very different result from a Kerry administration that may stay a little longer to try to promote real elections (likely unsuccessfully) and withdraw within a few years. And that says nothing about their differences on whether new wars are launched under Bush that Kerry would not have fought.
Four years ago and a military budget $200 billion per year lower, I remember many folks on this list saying it would make little difference who was President. That people can still repeat it in any manner just shows the ideological resistance to inconvenient facts that is a mirror of our current President.
Nathan Newman