Like people without kids who have opinions on raising them

I've been geting some flack lately for my support of Operation Yellow Elephant. In particular, one former Marine chastized me for calling people a chickenhawk.

oh yea. one more thing. i never tell people about my service becouse i think it doesnt matter.i went in durring time of peace and only came close once to seeing action.even with just the thought of a fight i saw people shit in thier pants.war is somthing i dont want.but sometimes i think it cant be avoided.

i cant stand people who diss presdent bush for serving in the national guard. infact , i hated hearing my fellow marines diss the army or any other branch of the armed services. i think it is equaly weak to claim that a person who didnt serve has no right to comment on war or a political issue concerning it

Does one have to serve (or have relations who serve) to have an opinion about war? Of course not. But cheerleading for the war when one has no vested sacrifice in it seems a little, well, chickenhawkish. I honor your service, Marine (assuming at face value with no other proof that you are who you say you are and not the delusional troll others think you are... again, there's no denying my identity and background, it's all over the net for anyone to see), and take your opinion of the war more seriously because you've demonstrated a willingness to fight one if necessary. For some reason, I take teachers' opinions on education, parents' opinions on childrearing, and scientists' opinions on evolution more seriously also.

Regardless, I still think you're wrong about this war. We were led into this war under false pretenses; the greatest crime a president can commit. Sending soldiers to battle is the most compelling decision a nation must make. Had we been exhorted to "liberate the Iraqi people from the tyranny of Saddam by torturing them in the same prisons in which Saddam tortured them and making their infrastructure worse" or "democratize the Middle East by blowing the shit out of it" before we sent troops in, we as a nation could have decided whether that lofty goal was worth 1,847 lives and thousands of missing limbs. Of course, if we're going to set that precedent of being World Police and taking down oppressive murderous dictators, people might take it more seriously if we weren't always somehow coincidentally taking down only the oppressive murderous dictators sitting on the world's largest oil reserves.

But we were lied to, bamboozled, hoodwinked to get into this war. "They'll greet us as liberators." "The country can finance its own reconstruction." "Shouldn't take longer than six months." "Mission Accomplished." "Saddam's got aerial drones that will spray anthrax on us." "We can't wait for the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." "Aluminum tubes for nuclear production." "Yellowcake from Niger." I don't like it when my president lies about blowjobs. I like it less when he lies about something that really matters.

Don't give me that "Bush didn't lie, he made a mistake" bullshit, either. There's more than enough credible, nonpartisan evidence to show that the "intelligence was being fixed around the policy". The PNAC had been lusting after Iraq since 1998. Immediately after 9/11 Rumsfeld was itching to bomb Iraq "because that's where the good targets are." Plenty of intelligence analysts on the ground and within the administration knew the fight was with Afghanistan and the Taliban and that Saddam was a contained regional threat of no danger to the United States.

BushCo wanted war, period. They "sexed up" phony documents and specious intelligence to suit their needs, ignored experts and intelligence that didn't, and destroyed anyone who would dare point out the emperor was naked.

But even if we can accept that the ends justify the means, BushCo has done a execrable job managing the means. Sending under-armored soldiers into combat. Not planning for an insurgency. No exit plan. Violating the Powell Doctrine by not attacking with overwhelming force. Disbanding the Iraqi Army. Managing to just lose $8.8 BILLION dollars. Failing to secure 250,000 tons of munitions. Crafting a policy that mandates torture and abuse of prisoners yet failing to control the digital cameras documenting the torture and abuse.

I'm not some kind of vegan tree-hugging anti-war peacenik, either (not that there's anything wrong with that). If anything, I think we should be involved in more violence against brutal dictatorial regimes. Rwanda and the Sudan come to mind, but we seem to be allergic to intervention in Africa. I'm no pollyanna who thinks we can always just talk things out. Sometimes an ass-kicking is necessary and justified. But if you're going to do it, you must be honest with the people, you must do your homework, and you must make your goals and objectives crystal clear.

Instead we get platitudes. "They hate us for our freedom." Who's this "they", and why don't they hate Sweden, Canada, and India? "We have to fight them there so we don't have to fight them here" as if "they" can't do both. We're fighting a global war on a tactic -- it's awfully hard to tell when you've defeated a noun.

The saddest thing is, that like Vietnam, eventually the people will grow weary of the death and the never-ending, always-shifting rationales, and we will pull out. The Middle East in general and Iraq in particular will decend into chaos and civil war (and that Iraqi civil war was inevitable whether we invaded or not.) Our oil supplies will be severely restricted and our economy will suffer greatly. And like Vietnam, righties like you will blame the anti-war movement for not "staying the course" rather than recognizing the war was a flawed gambit based on deception that never ever could have achieved its multiple stated goals.