When you can't send your children to school for fear they will be blown up. When you can't be sure that the neighborhood thugs will let you keep your ancestral home. When you are not sure that you won't be dragged out and shot in the street at any moment. When you can't get work in your area because you are a Shia or a Sunni or a Kurd. When the 'law' can't protect you from the guy accross the street or around the block, when there are foreigners in APCs roving your street, and those guys are better than the guys with machetes roaming your street. When you can't even try to get help from your own government because you fear that you will simply be killed while waiting in line for a handout.

You can say things were bad under Saddam and I won't disagree with you. You can even say they were as bad under Saddam. But we didn't invade Iraq to make it 'Different, but as bad in a different way'. In fact we invaded Iraq to halt a supposed clear and present danger to our nation. But if all we have done is substituted one living hell for another living hell, a living hell thats even more dangerous for america than even the fictitious one we invaded over- then this is a massive screw up. How you can stand by and cheerlead and still attack the integrity or honesty of those who don't, of those who are pointing out the absolute nakedness of the emperor in question- thats completely beyond me.

And still- how it does not cause any flutteriing of any hair on your head to see that every. single. thing. you. have. argued. from 2002 through five years later has been wrong. That just floors me.

This administration has done nothing right WRT Iraq, and almost nothing right WRT Afghanistan. They have actually used their own incompetence and the fact that 'well, other people were also wrong' to defend themselves against charges of outright dishonesty- and that does not bother you!?. And If we are to accept that defense, and thus accept that they are incompetent that does not bother you?!.

Saddam had been in a box effectively for a decade. The inspection and sanctions regime worked, because guess what: there were no WMD- we know this because we are stuck there indefinately in a WMD free zone! His military was a hollow shell that couldn't stand and fight- we know this because we slaughtered it on the field of battle with even less effort than 10 years ago.

Now, on the other hand, the entire region- including most of the major oil producers, teeters on the edge of a major war (covert or overt), we're stuck in the middle of a civil war with no end in sight and no signs of progress, and most projections of the future of Iraq conclude that as soon as we leave outright etnic cleansing will ensue (or should I say, escalate to a degree even higher than present!).

The future America and Iraq have to look forward to now is a hell of a lot less tractable than it was when Saddam was in power. Saddam may have been scum, but that does not and did not give us carte blanche to create a bloody sectarian mess and tie ourselves to it with a chain.

Sorry- but for anyone who actually sat down and studied the region, the politics and the history in non-partisan non-pre-digested way could have told you this would happen. In fact they did. Hell, I told you this would happen. You and others in your 'pack' called us ludicrous partisans who hated america, came up with a bunch of stupid notions and half-baked justifications and did what you wanted to do. Now here we are, 5 years later, and what we said would happen, happened. What you said would happen, didn't. So- just exactly what does that mean?

I think Bowser is wrong about most things, but I'll listen to him before I listen to you tell me what a great thing we did to 'un enslave' the Iraqis.

Yetster