Yeahhh...
Let's steer this out of the second grade and away from any sort of personal attacks, everyone. Kinda ridiculous.
Frankly, the president wouldn't be ABLE to be in Iraq right now if it weren't for congress having pretty much handed him a blank check. For every congressman I see complaining about the war, I have to ask, okay, did YOU vote to spend money on it? No money, no congressional authorization would equal, under the war powers act, no war.
Too many fingers in the pie there, I think. The question we have to ask ourselves now, I believe is...why aren't we just kicking ass, taking names and investing more in handing it over to the Iraqis?
I have one theory. I think we're afraid that they'll have democratic elections, but they won't go the way "we" want them to, like Lebanon's (Hezb'allah elected) and Palestine's (Hamas elected) went. Those were free, open elections, but obviously not to our administration's liking. So are we REALLY there for democracy, or only there to promote our own national interests? 'cause if we're there for our own interests, you'd think we could just admit it.
What we're missing is that people do not WANT democracy at the moment. They want working utilities, they want food, they want water, they want medicine. Wanna know why Al-Queda, Hamas, Hezb'allah and their ilk spread like wildfire? They're smart as hell, that's why. They KNOW that people have a heirarchy of needs, and basics, like food, water, shelter come first. Perhapos if we concentrated on methodically advancing and building things up things would be going better, instead of assuming that we would win outright and just marching across without truly getting the country ready to hand off? The insurgents aren't stupid. The stupid ones are all dead already.
Do I dislike that my tax dollars are being used for troops? No, as long as it GOES to the troops, but it isn't, is it? Our troops are having to weld on plates to HMMV's because our elected representatives can't find their butts with both hands, and spend their time debating "the sanctity of marriage", "drug wars" and whether or not some congressman should get (insert obscene amount of money) for (insert ridiculous, ludicrous pork barrel politics). Yeah, that's really an administration that cares about our troops. Especially when they're cutting benefits, extending tours, and having recruiters actively lie to kids at campuses to get to quotas. I know, we've been told at our campus' ROTC that if we agree to ANYTHING from a recruiter to GET IT IN WRITING, since they routinely promise things that, if not written and signed, mean jack. And it's not the recruiter's fault, it's someone giving orders, but....still, someone's obviously not having the interests of the individual troops in mind here. What gets me is when our tax money is misappropriated in scandals and pork barrel politics. That's what gets me. Big time.
