What a waste of money

To those of you who believe that you are not touched by the war, here is a brief recap.

To start a war you've got to propose a reason. The reason in the case of Iraq was that Iraq had WMDs and poison gas that they were going to use and that America was in immediate danger. This was the same Iraq that tried to inflict damage on the Israelis during the Gulf War with little success.

The Bush administration sold this to gullible Democrats and the public. So we "Shock and Awe" them into submission. Declare "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED".

War over. NO way. Sadaam goes into hiding. After the mission was accomplished the carnage started. We got careless. We took away their arms and ammunition, but left them unguarded. So the Iraqis plot their revenge. We were told we would be welcomed with bouquets, instead we are welcomed with bombs. Because we were in a rush to start this war we sent our troops ill-prepared and with poor armor for their humvees.

We arranged for seemingly democratic elections. They elect a government and everything looks good. War over. NO way.

We make a huge tactical mistake. One of the rules of war is to know your enemy. There is absolutely no reason to get caught in an insurgency, which may turn into a civil war. Our military leaders didn't foresee that. They also should have foreseen that Iraq would become a haven for Syrian and Iranian terrorists, and that both of them would fund the Shiites. On top of that they should have foreseen the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds hatred for each other and the U.S.

The Iraqis have learned American politics. Their government asks for money and when they use it up they ask for more. We are caught in what should have been foreseeable. We are asking the very people we fought against to help us maintain order so that we can rebuild what we destroyed. All of this at a tremendous cost in lives, and broken bodies. Even with a scorecard one can't tell our enemies from our friends, because even our friends are enemies in Iraq. Would anyone in their right minds send more troops to this cause?

How does it affect you? Think of what we could do for our schools, for health insurance, for Medicare, for affordable housing, for New Orleans, and for countless ways to make us really safer with the billions squandered on this fools errand.