Ms Rice would probably point out that that is not undermining. It's sabotaging.

Add to that list: failure to make any post-war plans (against the advice of the State Deparment and others), disastrous privatization and contracting policies, failure to restore the infrastructure, unqualified staffing of key positions, failure to control tens of thousands of weapons, tons of explosives (now being used against us) and key government facilities, misappropriation of billions of dolars in cash, failure to engage other countries with interests in Iraq except with braggadocio, belittlement and threats, failure to provide an exit strategy, failure to realize that an election would result in an anti-American government, and staying way past their welcome.

It was pointed out that for democracy to succeed, prior to any elections, there must be:

(1) security for persons and property

(2) a functioning and fair judicial system

Of course, neither of these has ever existed since the US invasion destroyed Iraq.

Add to that list: failure to make any post-war plans (against the advice of the State Deparment and others), disastrous privatization and contracting policies, failure to restore the infrastructure, unqualified staffing of key positions, failure to control tens of thousands of weapons, tons of explosives (now being used against us) and key government facilities, misappropriation of billions of dolars in cash, failure to engage other countries with interests in Iraq except with braggadocio, belittlement and threats, failure to provide an exit strategy, failure to realize that an election would result in an anti-American government, and staying way past their welcome.

I guess you just don't support the troops like Dubya does, huh? Off to Gitmo with you!

Jan Knaus

Support the Troops!

Of course instead of buying a ribbon magnet for your car you could have:

1) Listened to your Army Chief of Staff and actually committed the level of troops he deemed necessary to do the job (not that we actually had that many troops)

2) Sent the troops in with a clearly identified mission and an exit strategy

3) Equipped the troops with body armor and their vehicles with proper protection

4) Maybe have reconsidered Rules of Engagement that allowed troops to light up any vehicle or blow up any house anytime they had the remotest beliefe that said car might be a threat or said house at one time or another had had a bad guy in it. (Sorry for the women and kids! Who knew they would be at that wedding party!?)

I saw a revealing quote the other day. A high government official reassured some intelligence guy that everything would be forgotten and forgiven once they found that warehouse full of WMD. And you know? They are right. Every bit of excess force, every bit of graft, every American life lost would have been swept away by the discovery of some working chemical shells.

That was my nightmare at the time. That the magnet people would robotically point at a couple hundred chemical weapons shells as proof that all of this was justified. I opposed this war on the basis that a Saddam with chemical and biological weapons was not a strategic threat to the US and that the cost of war would be too high. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that Saddam could actually have eliminated almost every trace of his once robust chemical weapons program.

Sure he was a cruel, bloodthirsty dictator who didn't hesitate to negotiate with political opponents via meat hooks and rape rooms. Nobody I know is shedding any tears for Saddam. But you have to note the efficiency here.

Would you choose Mussolini over Browne to run Katrina relief? Maybe not. But who would have delivered the better result? We still periodically find leftover chemical shells from WW1 buried on defunct military bases. The Pentagon routinely admits it really couldn't tell you where that trillion dollars of spending actually went, but are pretty sure that none of it was, you know, wasted or stolen.

and by the way,just as an afterthought, what makes amerikans so goddam arrogant as to think that they are somehow better than saddam hussein's iraq?

isn't amerika the prison nation? most prisoners incarcerated for the victimless crime of marihuana possession.

isn't it a fact, that most of those incarcerated are black men. and isn't it also a fact that as a percentage of the population, this level of incarceration exceeds the incarcerations of black men in apartheid south afrika?

so, in a very real sense, while so many ignorant fascist bastids pat themselves and the usa on the back for eliminating saddam hussein, aren't they failing to look in the mirror? refusing to see the real monsters of this era?

the united states of amerika is the real bit of evil on this planet. the usa, and its leadership, demtillians/reptillians, reveal the fact that saddam hussein was just a two-bit shill for the usa...

when you want to grasp real evil, the usa takes the brass ring. over the last 50 years, no other nation comes close to the usa's homicidal ways.

the usa doesn't care whom it kills. the usa is an equal opportunity murderer. it loves killing blacks, indonesian patriots, anti-imperialist nicaraguans, chileans, salvadorans, guatemalans, uruguayans, venezuelans, mexicans, panamanians, guyanans, haitians, angolans, etc. etc.

when will there be a country strong enough to snuff us. please re-arm vladdy. save the world.