The immorality of the flypaper strategy

Cunning Realist asks exactly the right questions:

Has anyone thought about why we're justified in using another nation as flypaper in the first place, even if it was a viable, effective strategy? What gives us the right to use a sovereign nation as a catch basin for carnage so we can go on blissfully consuming and merrily flipping real estate here? Instead of flypaper, this should be called the "Night of the Living Dead Nation" strategy--using the undead, zombie-like carcass of a failed state for our own benefit. Beyond the sheer selfish immorality of it, has anyone thought about the potential for blowback? How would you feel if we were invaded by the Chinese on a false pretense, and they stated openly that their strategy was to attract and fight the scum of the earth in the streets of New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Chicago so they did not have to fight in Beijing?

It's not just that the flypaper theory was a post hoc rationalization for a failed strategy, for the failure of the "cakewalk" to materialize. It's that it is a morally bankrupt position to begin with.

The dominant meme developing on the right these days is that it was all okay in theory, it's just that the Bushies have been incompentent in executing it. But as Kevin Drum points out, this is at best a fudge (and I would go further and say "intellectually dishonest") in that it allows them to admit they were wrong about supporting the war, without having to come to grips with the fundamental failings of the belief system that drove their support for the war in the first place.