There's a bashed-up battlefield so the economy won't work*, and the economy doesn't work so people go blow up the infrastructure some more, ergo, vicious cycle.

*Many of the factories in Iraq sustained damage from the war and the looting afterwards. The CPA didn't do anything to get them up and running again. The constant power cuts don't help either.

perhaps "The users of healthcare in the US are being screwed" is a better way of putting it. As in "US healthcare users pay 700% more for drugs than they would if they lived in Canada" or "Bongo Bill and angrysunbird are being screwed by Washington into paying enough to provide universal health covarage without actually getting it".
{As for universal health covarage being a right... well, don't look at it that way. Look at it as a form of government investment in it's people. To use the crudest analogy possible, a pig farmer, wanting to get maximum return on his invetsment, will shell out in vets fees rather than lose valuable animals. In a similar way many companies give over and above what they are obligated to by laws and whatnot, to protect their assets (in the form of the workforce)}

I don't really know how, either. However, history has given plenty of examples on how not to manage an occupation, and I can recognize some of those problems. Rules like "don't fire the army without compensation" are not to hard to guess at - and even if they were, it's not like nobody predicted what would happen. I think the simple fact that the troops were told they would be home in six months, and most still haven't, means that our plans didn't work.

Bill - to exapnd on angrysunbird's point; there are plenty of practical reasons for welfare state coverage like universal health care; which probably have more to do with their introduction than the fact most accept it is a human right:

1) It creates a healthier and better educated workforce, which can imporve the efficiency and competitiveness of your country's industries.

2) By ameliorating the worst effects of unbridled capitalism, it makes people more content with their situation, removing the attractiveness of revolutionary movements and petty crime, thus making for a more peaceful and safe society.

3) From the perspective of elected officials, it gets you votes.

The American right doesn't have a Bismarck, caffeine. They're so sure they can win it all, and so unconcerned with the greater good, that they couldn't be bothered stealing anyone's thunder. Besides, as I sometimes point out in other contexts; civil servants don't bribe politicians, major corporations do. Insurance companies, which are nothing but money handling operations, can afford extremely lucrative bribes.

Point.