Willhelm - not sure on others, but I thought I this policy before it and during and now. It was poor planning to go into this withough UN approval. Also the ONLY reason the house and senate voted was because (as we now know) they were given FALSE information on WMD. Many people were behind this war because 911 was used at the tipping point and then FALSE intell was given to make all arrows point to IRAQ. Now the samething is happening with IRAN.
If we had waited for UN buy-in, I believe this false data would not have been possible to leverage - thus the war would not have occured.
The UN was established for a reason - to balance Global Powers and the current administration feels ...

Willhelm - not sure on others, but I thought I this policy before it and during and now. It was poor planning to go into this withough UN approval. Also the ONLY reason the house and senate voted was because (as we now know) they were given FALSE information on WMD. Many people were behind this war because 911 was used at the tipping point and then FALSE intell was given to make all arrows point to IRAQ. Now the samething is happening with IRAN.
If we had waited for UN buy-in, I believe this false data would not have been possible to leverage - thus the war would not have occured.
The UN was established for a reason - to balance Global Powers and the current administration feels they are the only one in power and THE POWER. They are just a bunch of NUTS who have driven this country into turmoil.
Anyway - I think the results of the policy are already known. The real question that we won't know for decades or if ever is just what else the slime bags in the Bush Administration did during the last 5 years to harm our country and profit for themselves and their buddies.

Where has UN shown anything relevant? They had miriad of resolutions against Iraq and what? They themselves were in bed with sadam on the oil4food program... UN is totally useless in dealing with these issues. It appears to be just as incapable as the League of Nations was in the old days.

You think this was so bad with Iraq... let's see what happens with Iran now... they've had numerous warnings, ala sadam, from the IAEA and from the European Union and USA and the UN. So far plenty of diplomacy has been tried and so far the result - a big fat middle finger in your face from the super smooth president of Iran himself!

It's too bad all of you (with the exception of willhelm) insist on o...

Where has UN shown anything relevant? They had miriad of resolutions against Iraq and what? They themselves were in bed with sadam on the oil4food program... UN is totally useless in dealing with these issues. It appears to be just as incapable as the League of Nations was in the old days.

You think this was so bad with Iraq... let's see what happens with Iran now... they've had numerous warnings, ala sadam, from the IAEA and from the European Union and USA and the UN. So far plenty of diplomacy has been tried and so far the result - a big fat middle finger in your face from the super smooth president of Iran himself!

It's too bad all of you (with the exception of willhelm) insist on opening your eyes only after another 9/11 occurs... although I'm sure you'll come up with million other excuses and marches how diplomacy wasn't tried and UN wasn't used etc. etc. etc. unless someone like Hillary is in the White House, in which case you'll let anything pass, as you did during her hubby's reign.

I'm not going to speak for willhelm, but his comment simply highlighted the typical liberal tirade on the subject... which is pretty accurate actually.

The problem with "dislike the decision makers not the executors" is that actively undermining the war effort by attacking the decision makers is in fact puts ammunition into the enemy's hands, i.e. it creates the environment of more hostility toward the executors. And that only creates more problems.

This war isn't like any other war... We're not fighting a military force and we're not fighting a standing government. It's not exactly the same but an analogy could be the war on crime, which is fought daily in every city... which will NEVER...

I'm not going to speak for willhelm, but his comment simply highlighted the typical liberal tirade on the subject... which is pretty accurate actually.

The problem with "dislike the decision makers not the executors" is that actively undermining the war effort by attacking the decision makers is in fact puts ammunition into the enemy's hands, i.e. it creates the environment of more hostility toward the executors. And that only creates more problems.

This war isn't like any other war... We're not fighting a military force and we're not fighting a standing government. It's not exactly the same but an analogy could be the war on crime, which is fought daily in every city... which will NEVER be finished because of its nature. The war on terror is somewhat more winnable, but still very tough. So all this talk about poor planning etc. - bologna! Nobody could've predicted that this kind of war would need to be fought and I doubt that anyone could've orchestrated something vastly superior in execution. We could easily win this war using the conventional approach to winning wars, but we don't want to do so, because we don't want to kill a ton of people. So, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place... saddam needed to be removed and so he was, bin laden has been exiled to the degree that he can only release audio tapes once in a while, now we have a madman in Iran.

This is NOT 'just like Vietnam', simply because nobody attacked the US in Vietnam war. This war on terror is fought because US was directly attacked. In Vietnam war one part of Vietnam wanted to control another. Here we have a group of cowards that want to kill every man, woman and child in America - it's slightly different any way you look at it.

The decision makers however are flawed in their decisions and have other agenda on their minds.

It is like Vietnam in the sense there were more tactical options available, yet they sent in 300,000 troops, giving the enemy targets. The takedown of Saddam could have been done by Special Ops teams and CIA teams that could have been in and out without having much notice but achieving the same affect.

Former Generals have spoken out - stating how flawed the plans of execution were. There is no reason all our men and women of the armed forces need to be dying in another land in a non-winnable war (same as Vietnam). They can protect America better from here.

As far as the UN - granted there i...

The decision makers however are flawed in their decisions and have other agenda on their minds.

It is like Vietnam in the sense there were more tactical options available, yet they sent in 300,000 troops, giving the enemy targets. The takedown of Saddam could have been done by Special Ops teams and CIA teams that could have been in and out without having much notice but achieving the same affect.

Former Generals have spoken out - stating how flawed the plans of execution were. There is no reason all our men and women of the armed forces need to be dying in another land in a non-winnable war (same as Vietnam). They can protect America better from here.

As far as the UN - granted there is reorganization needed in there, but the concept of a world deciding on a situation, is better then one nation deciding and thinking it has the correct answer.

Unfortunately for both those that have been sent to Iraq, those that they left at home, those that live in Iraq, and those that will be paying for this debacle for decades to come - there is no way to have an "immediate withdrawl" of troops from Iraq.

To think that this is possible is to subscribe to the same flawed thinking that got us into this mess in the first place, and to act on it will doubtless leave us in a bigger mess than the one we started with.

We broke it, and now we have to fix it - and our children and grandchildren will have to pay for it.

I have no idea how long this will take, or what it will cost - suffice it to say that it's cost in human life, ruined national r...

Unfortunately for both those that have been sent to Iraq, those that they left at home, those that live in Iraq, and those that will be paying for this debacle for decades to come - there is no way to have an "immediate withdrawl" of troops from Iraq.

To think that this is possible is to subscribe to the same flawed thinking that got us into this mess in the first place, and to act on it will doubtless leave us in a bigger mess than the one we started with.

We broke it, and now we have to fix it - and our children and grandchildren will have to pay for it.

I have no idea how long this will take, or what it will cost - suffice it to say that it's cost in human life, ruined national reputations, racial and religious strife will far exceed anything that has been imagined to date.

What is scandalous is that we still permit those that got us into this mess in the first place to continue to steer the ship.