> How sure are you that the goal in Iraq/Afghanistan wasn't purely and simply to get an unpopular president a patriotic polling boost and a seeminly unlikely second term with the bonus of putting money in the pockets of the military-industrial complex and owners of big media while providing a distraction from the endemic corruption of washington?
Pretty sure of all of most of that for both, though not the same parts for Iraq and Afghanistan. The political imperative for Afghanistan after 9/11 is pretty unmistakable. The long-term neocon objective with Iraq also was unmistakable. There's also pretty solid indication that factions I. The Administration wanted to use 9/11 as a pretext to execute the latter but were delayed by the political imperative for the former.
> Does that really sound like a conspiracy theory now we know that the regime deliberately and knowingly lied about Weapons of Mass Destruction?
Yes, the ascriptions of the motives cited to both Afghanistan and Iraq still sounds like a conspiracy theory. And I’m not sure what you mean by “now that we know”; that the claims were being advanced were false and that the administration had the information which showed them to be false was widely reported in the major media at the time the claims were made.
> If you think that possible then perhaps the "long-term goal" wasn't really what the liars were lying at the time?
No, but in the case of Iraq, it's what the leading figures of the neocon movement were telling the truth about the desires for right up to the moment the whole gang became the defense and foreign policy apparatus (and hyper-empowered VP) of the Bush 43 administration.
> There are those who believer endless war was the precise goal.
“There are those who believe” is not an argument that makes your position sound less like a conspiracy theory.
> There hasn't been a lot of anti-corruption impetus in washington since that distraction was launched
There wasn't a lot in the two decades before that, either. So unless the distraction was as effective backwards in time as forwards, I don't think it was really a significant factor.
> Out of interest how do Americans feel about the Vietnam war? Did America lose that war?
Most recognize that we lost the war; there are those who cling to loudly propounding the fact that we militarily defeated the VC before the NVA took over the main fighting as if that somehow negates losing the war.