I’m one of those troops.

If the “Mission” was “accomplished, why aren’t we all looking back on our time in the box; with the semi-wistful ways of those who got to come home after WW2.

Even if we accept that some sort of occupation was needful (as it was with WW2) it’s been what, four years? And in the meanwhile we’ve seen 3,000 more deaths, 26,0000 more wounded, and a whole lot more DNBI (that’s Disease, Non-Battle injuries).

Why is Walter Reed overflowing? Why is the VA overwhelmed?

In short, why are we still working at this, “accomplished” mission?

I don’t feel dengrated by people who worry about me, and my fellows. Who are concerned that we lack the proper equiment, are being sent back to the fight without the needed time to refit, and retrain; that we are being asked to stay longer, return sooner and spend more of our time in “the Box.”

All the while listening to people tell us how glorious was the victory. Well when I was at Walter Reed (and later Madigan Army Medical Center) I didn’t see much glory. Rather I saw someone telling the people killing my friends, and filllng Ward 57, to “bring it on.”

Who has been volunteering? Not the Goldberg’s, Yamashita’s and Kagans. But they are more than willing to say that 15 month rotations (after finishing a year long one, with three months at home) are “what they signed up for.”

I have friends, married now for more than three years. They’ve spent not five months together since they got married.

Why? Because (after the “Victory” they spent time passing each other as one, then the other, were rotated through Iraq”.

That’s not the kind of support I appreciate.

T. Karney
SSG
USA

This “nabalzbbfr” person is just a dick.

Simple as that, everything that followed is just coincidential.

Did you notice the report of the Israeli government regarding Olmert’s invasion of Lebanon? Why, horror of horrors, it criticized the administration of the prime minister! Yahoo news reports:

“The five-member panel, named by Olmert, used exceptionally harsh language, saying Olmert bore overall responsibility and suffered from poor judgment, hasty decision-making and shortsightedness.”

Isn’t it ironic that Israel, our dear democratic ally, seems to have a much better handle on the concept of “democracy” and “free speech” than you and those of your ilk do!

“In 34 days of fighting, Israel failed to achieve the two main goals Olmert set: to return the soldiers and crush Hezbollah. Instead, Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets into northern Israel.

Nearly 160 Israelis and more than 1,000 Lebanese died in the fighting, and Israeli soldiers returned from battle complaining of conflicting orders and shortages of food and ammunition.”

Do you believe the Israelis who freely investigate and hold accountable their elected officials are unpatriotic traitors, or do you reserve that criticism solely for you own countrymen? We support the troops. You who blindly continue to support Bush and his failed policies are the ones who “denigrate our troops!”

A ’stunningly quick and virtually bloodless’ victory? Quick certainly but at the time of the President’s vainglorious speech, 153 American military personnel were already dead. I don’t imagine they died in their sleep. And the estimated 1000 (’low ball’ estimate) Iraqi dead at the time of the speech? I imagine that they were just being poor sports. ‘Sour grapes’ for them too.

I have grave doubts that a mere 1000 Iraqi soldiers (who were defending their home from an aggressive invader) died during the initial invasion. A lowball of 1000 civilians? Maybe… but the soldiers were still living, breathing human beings who didn’t deserve to die.

A ’stunningly quick and virtually bloodless’ victory? Quick certainly but at the time of the President’s vainglorious speech, 153 American military personnel were already dead. I don’t imagine they died in their sleep. And the estimated 1000 (‘low ball’ estimate) Iraqi dead at the time of the speech? I imagine that they were just being poor sports. ‘Sour grapes’ for them too.

‘Poor taste’ to critcize the Commander in Chief? I’m sure the British considered those philistines and cretans who drafted our Constitution to be in ‘poor taste’ as well.

‘Denigrate our troops’? The reason we chose to ‘denigrate’ our President is precisely because this ill-advised invasion ‘denigrates our troops and encourages our enemies.’ One of the very things at the very top of Usama bin Laden’s wish list after 9-11 was the propsect of an American occupation force in a sovereign Muslim country. By all accounts, he was delighted with the Operation Iraqi Freedom because he surmised (correctly) that it would be a boon to his organizaton and to Islamic Fundamentalism in general.

So, in the most perverse way possible, if you support this war, you support Usama bin Laden.

At any rate:

The US military, under the leadership of President Bush, did win a stunningly quick and virtually bloodless victory in Iraq in spring of 2003.

That they thought this was something to celebrate, when the hardest part was yet to come, further underscores the stunning incompetence and myopia of the Bush administration.

…see, here’s the fundamental problem. While there isn’t anything wrong with “honoring the valor and skill” of our troops, there is no reason to accord “glory” to a leader who sent his nation off to war. That’s a sentiment for people who don’t understand what war is about; that’s something for the “300″ crowd that went back to the theater time after time and won’t sleep well until the DVD comes out. We can be grateful when the conflict has ended – which this one hasn’t – and we can be thankful that our leaders had the moxie to place properly skilled people in place to successfully prosecute the war, but glorifying leaders is the mark of warrior tribes that were swept from the stage eons ago. Suggesting – as was done at the time in numerous circles and not through some later lens of 20-20 hindsight – that the absurd spectacle of flying onto a carrier deck in an S-3 Viking while the rest of the gang was transferred out by helicopter was over the top showmanship neither denigrates the troops or encourages the enemies…

With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight?

Many people objected to the Iraq War prior to the invasion, including, to list just a few, Poppa Bush’s National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft; Retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former head of Central Command for U.S. forces in the Middle East and State Department envoy to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; Howard Dean; Russ Feingold; and Jim Webb. Their statements are on the record.

Valid concerns were countermanded by knowingly false intelligence and drowned out by the GOP propaganda echo chamber. We are “carping” about the lies we were fed because that’s how we were led into a war that’s killed thousands of Americans and many more Iraqis and wiped out our treasury and the entire infrastructure of Iraq. We need to recognize who misled us into this disaster and how and why so that we’ll never listen to them again. Those who were proven right should be the ones leading us forward.