RateItAll: The Opinion Network

ORIGINAL COMMENT 5/9/06: You know, there used to be a couple of conservatives on this site. Liberals see an ideological victory in this topic now because the "good news" from Iraq is so infrequent and the lie about lies (Bush lied about everything) has been accepted as vernacular truth. We're in Iraq until the next democrat president is elected. Period.

Iraq is a military conflict which every liberal criticizes with the most hateful, slanted verbiage imaginable. And we have soldiers on the ground and in harm's way.

One thing is clear from this Bush-bashing frenzy of a list. Libs hate George Bush in just the worst way and are incapable of conducting a civil exchange where Bush's presidential record is involved. Every slanted, extrapolated, exaggerated, over-the-top mischaracterization is fine, from analogizing the war in Iraq to the Vietnam war (which is the most ridiculous and intellectually false comparison) to maintaining that the rationale for the military incursion was COMPLETELY based on lies, which is at best an exaggeration and most likely a complete falsehood, but as yet nothing has been conclusively proven.

When young men and women return to the US from Iraq, they get to experience what the young men and women experienced upon their return from Vietnam. If you don't think that is happening, ask a returning soldier about his/her re-patriation experience. Be sure and criticize his Commander-in-Chief while you're talking to him, too. He'll probably appreciate that you're utilizing one of the freedoms he just risked his life for.

UPDATE(PHEW!!): So, to justathot, the war in Iraq is the moral equivalent of the Blitzkrieg, the raping and plundering of Germany's (nearly) defenseless neighbor's, on its way to world domination. What an odd country the US has become, and what an odd website RIA has become. That ridiculous post, which insults the US, our troops, their leaders and the military in general, and ought to be offensive to you regardless of where you sit on the political continuum, not only has not been responded to on this site, it received helpfuls. I'll defend your right to say anything you want, but that is such a stupid and offensive analogy, I can't believe nobody here took that dim bulb to task. There's an old expression: stand for something or you'll fall for anything. If you agree with that post, it's probably too late.

Who would have ever thought that America would forget the lessons of Viet Nam so quickly?

Anybody still defending this thing?

Look, forget all the right-wing bulls**t. They seem to follow the credo of Josef Goebbels that if you repeat a lie often enough, people will start to believe it. Bottom line- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11; Saddam and Osama were adversaries, not allies; there were and are no weapons of mass destruction; Iraq is a mess that's getting worse and there's no end in sight; lives are being lost every week and we've squandered billions of dollars while chicken-hawk hacks play politics; we've stirred up the hornet's nest of Arab nationalism and God knows what horrors we're bestowing on future generations with such blind recklessness...need more? If you do, then the combined efforts of Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, the ministrations of Jim Dobson and Jerry Falwell, and the heavy doses of medication prescribed by the staff at Bellevue won't be able to cure what ails you. Or what ails America.

Bush refuses to admit when he is wrong.It is costing our troops their lives and the Citizens their hard earned money.Now they are setting their sights on Iran.God help America!

It's been three years since our fearless chicken-hawk declared victory- clearly we are in the 'Disneyland' stage of whatever passes for success nowadays. . .if I had the same standards my company would be bankrupt.

This is an abject failure on several fronts: historical, political, occupation strategy, strategic, military planning; national interest and others.

Because the number of troops lost and billions of taxpayer dollars that Bush has had to keep funneling to Iraq, you have to hold his administration accountable. Saddam's threat was grossly over-hyped. Al Qaida was a threat to the world, yet we turned away from a global threat and bet everything on a localized threat of a government against its own people.

Because the human lives of our troops are priceless, we owe it them to use them only when necessary, only where necessary, and only with a well-thought out game plan that maximizes their safety.

In the goal of improving our overseas and homeland safety, we not only shot at the wrong targets, but we put target signs on every troop we stationed on the ground. The repercussions have been painful and enduring.

It's too early to tell whan the long term effect of the decision to preemptively go into Iraq will be.

However, I can't give President Bush passing grades on this one because of 1) His moral weakness on torture; 2) His unwillingness to hold Rumsfeld accountable for his errors.