The statues tumbled down, the Iraqi people cheered and beat Saddam paraphernalia with a shoe (which the news never failed to explain was a terrible insult in the Arab world), and the dictatorship came to an end. When you take away a dictator, the inevitable result is a punker's dream state: Anarchy.

It turns out that humanity isn't so different on the other side of the world. The first order on any anarchic agenda is looting. Steal and smash up anything and everything. It puts everyone on the same level. This also happens in America when cops kill minorities in the minority part of town, or the local sports team wins or loses the big game.

As far as wars go, this one went rather smoothly. 100 or so U.S. casualties in a couple weeks of serious fighting. Although no tallies were kept on the enemy, the Iraqis probably lost thousands. Hooray for our side. We got our Red Badge of Courage story in the form of a young woman named Jessica Lynch. Folks at NBC are fervently writing the story in dramatic TV-movie flair, and we will satiate our cinematic cravings to wrap up the war in the traditional God Bless America style.

There is the good: we disassembled the regime of a vicious, narcissistic dictator. Saddam was a foul man who used his wealth to stay in power rather than benefit his country. We ransacked and destroyed his gaudy palaces and yachts. The Iraqi people felt more like slaves than citizens under Saddam's command, and now they can look forward to a different future.

There is the bad: The reason we said we were going to war has not turned out to be true yet. We have not found any weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqi army proved to be about as dangerous as extremists in Montana. Not exactly a worthy adversary for our war machine. All of the assumptions of why went to war in Iraq have turned out to be true. The first area we secured was the southern oil fields. While Iraqi citizens looted their cities, no one touched the well-guarded oil. To say this was a war of liberation and not profit is a half truth. This war was for both.

Now it's clean up time, the part Americans can have trouble accomplishing. While the objectives of war are clear-cut, creating the post-war country has always been a problem. In World War II, we got together with Britain, France and Russia to see what would be done with Germany. When we decided that the four countries should split up the responsibility, the world suddenly got East and West Germany and East and West Berlin. Korea is still split in half, and the region still causes headaches on an annual basis. We simply left Vietnam because we lost. The Cold War was nothing but three decades of nuclear paranoia, fear and stockpiling until Russia finally went broke. Gulf War I lead to Gulf War II. Afghanistan is still a pretty lousy place to be even after the Al-Qaeda dudes were chased out. Now we are at the end of Gulf War II, and I hope this is the one and only sequel.

The Iraqi people are liberated and the U.S. controls the oil fields. Everyone is happy, right? Our options now are to keep rolling the war machine into Syria, wait and see who the Iraqi people will vote for when the choices consist of a name other than Hussein, or punt the ball away and play defense since we have the lead.

Americans have a chronic problem of short-term attention span. We received the images we all wanted to see: Statues falling in Baghdad and Iraqis cheering the conquerors. Most of the country sees the war as being done. As far as the fighting goes, most of the hard times are behind us. I don't see much more than isolated skirmishes from here on out, but when I look ahead to what will be done to clean up the mess, all I have is the past to guide me. That doesn't give me much confidence, and we have yet to experience what message this sends to other countries who have mortal enemies (see India and Pakistan).

I'm like many Americans who wish this whole thing was over and done, but it's not. We will have a presence in Iraq for years to come (see Korea), and when President Bush finally turns his head to focus on the problems of his own nation, he's going to realize that not everything can be solved with superior fire power.

Chris Jungle will not profit from this war.