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Iraq Debacle & Afghanistan

Had we tended to Afghanistan and not been misled by neocons, chickenhawks, war profiteers and Iraqi exiles into invading Iraq, the war on Al Qaeda may have been won already. Afghanistan might have become a truye and stable democracy. Instead, we blew it. Now we are witnessing the resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban and a second front against our courageous troops in the Middle East.

Read the 'accomplishments' so far of the Iraq War - and weep:
(1) the death of Saddam and his equally evil sons;
(2) 3200 innocent US military killed, over 20,000 injured, many maimed for life.
(3) tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis killed;
(4) alienation of most of our allies who had gone with us into Afghanistan, something we had to do after 9-11 - attack the terrorists;
(5) the USA now among the most disrespected countries in the world, with only Israel, North Korea and Iran ranking lower'
(6) Iran emboldened and more powerful;
(7) Iraq likely to become an Islamic theocracy, while before Saddam was a secularist despised by bin Laden as an infidel. Women, by the way, were treated quite well in Saddam's time - did not need to be covered and usually weren't. Christians treated well, also. This does not excuse Saddam, of course. He gassed his own people, by the way, when we were supporting him!
(8) Osama bin Laden still missing;
(9) USA spending billions upon billions, going deeper and deeper into debt - a trillion or more on that war before we get out of Iraq;
(10) military-industrial complex (remember Ike's warning) pocketing billions in profit, some of it stolen;
(11) American people, united after 9-11, now in bitterly opposing camps;
(12) burden of Iraq falling on very few Americans - the rest living as usual;
(13) war now on two fronts, with the Taliban and Al Qaeda reemerging in Afghanistan while our attention and military have been distracted by Iraq;
(14) Israel is in greater danger, along with our other Middle East allies. Ironically, the Israeli lobby and its American fans pushed hard for our invasion of Iraq. Israel was the only nation outside the USA where most of the people approved of our preemptive attack.
(15) we had been warned about WMDs and assured by many 'experts' - Chalibi, Wolfowitz, Feith, etc. - that we would be welcomed with flowers, that the war would be over very soon, that Iraqi oil would pay for the war, and other nonsense.

That's 15 - a round number so we'll leave it at that. Remember, too, that the Pope and most mainline USA Protestant churches opposed the invasion of Iraq.

We should be remembering and paying tribute to those young people who have lost their lives serving the USA overseas - and, now, too, those collegians who were massacred at Virginia Tech. Enormous tragedies.