What WAS he supposed to tell those troops? The truth? That the whole Iraq war was naked agression based on lies. That they had been enlisted as unwitting accomplices to a rape?

Do you really think he should have told those troops what he REALLY thought about our glorious Barbarossa? That self-serving, treacherous monsters sold them down the river for political and ideological reasons? That a greasy huddle of morally bankrupt gangsters made them pay in blood and agony for their political fantasies and imperialsitic dreams? That the friends and limbs and sanity and broken families and marriages they left behind were all for nothing?

Of course not. He had to lie to them. The men that came back were heroes, even if the war was not heroic; the least he could do for them was to tell them the little white lie that it really was worth it all. And you, Tom, all you can think of is "How are we going to turn this back on Barrack Hussein Obama so we can feel better about our own little complicity in this crime of the century?" Shame on you.

At least, Bush now knows what happened, and I really think he feels genuinely sorry for what happened. I can see it in his eyes, he is not an evil man, like Cheney and all those despicable chickenhawks in the White House. I don't think Bush really meant it to come out like this, but he really didn't know any better, and I think it will haunt him the rest of his life, haunt him with genuine regret. I actually feel sorry for him, he didn't really know what he was doing. But those around him knew, they knew perfectly well. And they are still on TV making excuses for their shock and awe, their renditions, their enhanced interrogation techniques, their waterboarding, their missions accomplished. But for you, every day is just another opportunity to come up with another excuse to blame it on someone else, to justify your own complicity, not in the war, but in the justifications and rationalizations and excuses for it, because even the slightest peep of protest out of you might have been embarassing for the criminals that have foisted this entire Neocon blood fantasy on this country for almost a decade.

Of course Obama's not saying “thank God we’re done with that quagmire,”. How could he possibly look those men in the face and tell them that? That would be spitting in the face of those heroes, and on the flag they carried. They have already been spit on, and their colors disgraced, by the war criminals that conspired to send them there.

Yeah, I would have lied to them too. I wouldn't have had the courage to tell them the truth, either.