I sent a long reply to your post at #112, but it didn’t get through for some reason. Clean it was too. Nothing new, just a discussion on how do we turn loose of that tiger’s tail now we have it?

No good options at this point. I just hate to see us sacrifice soldiers to delay the inevitable until the Democrats are in office so the Repugs can deny losing Bush’s War.

I am off for a weekend of trout fishing and mushroom hunting with my kids. You have a good weekend and thanks for your posts.

We see it the same way, it seems.

We will have to agree to disagree on what Bush knew and his motives for Iraq. And I agree with going after the enemy wherever you find them.

My point is that our enemies weren’t in Iraq. Sadam was an evil madman, but there were and are lots of them around. I have a horrible picture of an Iraqi dad holding the mangled body of his daughter after a bomb hit the house, and I can’t help but think that if that were me, I would be the first one to volunteer to carry that heavy suitcase to New York. We are creating enemies where we didn’t have any.

What a strong message we would have sent to the entire world, and especially the Muslim world, if we had pursued Osama and AQ in Afghanistan and totally and ruthlessly destroyed them to a man.

Instead, we played right into his hands and are breeding terrorists in a country he was not welcome in.

My kids and grandkids are much more vulnerable to dying from a terrorist attack because of Bush’s ego.

Anyway, thanks for the martinis and have a good weekend.

Thank you for your insight here and I haven’t had this kind of discussion on TP in months, I can’t believe how nice it is to have the trolls somewhere else and be able to have real dialogue again!

Here is where you and I part ways: I think there was mistakes in the intelligence but also that it was manipulated and misused to further the reason to attack Iraq. (See C. Powell’s and G, Tenet’s recent statements.)

And your other comment about the raping, etc. does two things; one says that you now have a different reason for going into Iraq then we first used, and that it is justified because he was one of the most evil men in power. If you REALLY believe that last part, why did we not invade a half dozen countries in Africa , other MEast countries or parts of Eastern Europe insted?

That is where the blind support of Bush gets you wrapped around the axle. You will accept whatever excuse they give, or so it seems.

I agree with you on much of thsat last post, including your assessment of HC and the majority of the candidates from both sides running for the Emperor’s seat in 08. But the real issues are embedded much deeper than that; we have congressmen, senators, generals, intelligence officers, attorney generals, etc who are also corrupt and/or blinded by power and greed.

I think that we should just take half the members of congress from a random sampling of the average people on the street and put them in office with a crash course in US Constitutional law for Dummies and they would do better than waht we have nbow.

It takes no rocket scientist to do what they do, just hard work, honesty and wanting to do what’s right for the country and their constituants…. not for their own pockets and special interests.

You may have mistaken me for a pacifist, and I most certainly not. I was totally supportive of going after AQ in Afghanistan. Chase them down and skin them would have been fine with me. I have read several books about our detour to Iraq and where you and I disagree is to what extent were we lied to and manipulated to justify what I see as Bush’s private vendetta against Sadam.

I would have been supportive of going after the Germans.

Have two beers and hold the prayer. I will have a glass of wine with my trout and chanterelles and hold the vitriol.

Get our country back. How? Vote the scum out of office!! Next, how to keep from getting into the VN, Somalia, Haiti, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, & other firefights? Quit trying to be the world’s police force. How arrogant to we Americans look as we invade another country to take down their leader because we don’t like what he stands for or does? What if someone invaded us because they didn’t like Carter, Bush, Clinton, or JFK? We crap a mess of flying squirrels!! We can no longer afford to police the world. We can no longer afford to give away billions of taxpayer dollars to countries where the people don’t even like us. We have infrastructure problems here at home. We have homeless to house. Sick to heal. Hungry to feed. And this is all within our own country!!

Whether H.C. is correct or not is a moot point! She has proven herself as a self serving, narcissist ego maniac. Republicans are no better.

You are right, it is faith that keeps the Bush supporters where they are. But at some point, given all of the proof that they are wrong in placing their faith in these guys, that they are in fact, being lied to, they will give up their stubborn (sorry, resolved) postions and see the real world.

And it is happening, slowly but surely. It may appear that there are more GWsupporters than there are because they are so vocal, but the polls are consistently sliding down. Some of these die-hards are getting the message.

BTW, I appreciate your posts. You are articulate without stooping to the vitriol.

I have to ask then, why haven’t they gotten anything right yet and why do over 75% of this country disagree and want a change? I am a fairly intelligent, grad school educated individual who reads, studies issues and have worked inside and outside this government. I am also a wounded combat vet of Vietnam and I travel a lot outside of this country and find it refreshing to get opinions from others that see us with a different eye then we do. They just can’t understand how we have let our country get away from all the things we stand for and why we don’t take it back.

Getting our country back should be the FIRST thing we do… then get our troops home in a managed way to prepare for the real battles to come, not the false one in Iraq.

Right now, if I was in another country and some US troops invaded me to “give me the gift of democracy”, I would say thanks for the offer but I have seen what it has done to your country, so GO F@CK YOURSELF!!!!

How do you feel about random traffic stops to search your vehicle? I suppose you are ok with that because you have nothing to hide.

And door to door searches in the middle of the night? That’s ok too, because you aren’t harboring terrorists.

How about when they strip and cavity search your wife and daughter? Still ok? They surely don’t have anything to hide do they? DO THEY?? And when you protest that they seem to be enjoying it a little too much, guess what? You are an enemy combatant and get thrown in jail.

It’s a slippery slope when you start throwing civil liberties out the door, and I am amazed at the Bush lovers who support it.

I would bet $100 that youa re a good Christian, GWsupporter. That is the last bastion of believers who support the evil f*ck. They are predisposed to believing fantasies, and to yielding their unquestioning faith to a father figure who tells them that He is right.

Think for yourself little puppet.

Dissent isn’t propaganda; claiming dissent creates propaganda is. Henirich Edelman sounds like a trustworthy guy — wonder what size jackboots and Sam Brown belt he wears? Like his DNA source, Dickless Cheney, this guy is a fucking facist through and through. He represents a war machine that’s chosen Orwell’s “1984″ as its roadmap. This country is on the road to ruin as long as treasonous shitbags like this are behind the steering wheel. I wouldn’t be surprised if he hails from Pulaski, Tennessee.