Iraq wasn't just a mistake, it was a crime.

There is a video snippet on Youtube showing a young Iraq veteran rooting for McCain and accusing those who think Iraq was a 'mistake' of disrespecting the troops, living and dead.

 

I'd like to put in my two cents.

 

The Vietnam War was a mistake, the Iraq war is a crime.

 

Both began thru deception but Bush went far beyond that by ignoring and bypassing both international laws against aggression and domestic and Constitutional Law when he invaded Iraq, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis in the process and costing the lives of over 4200 of our loyal and brave troops.  He deliberately steered intelligence to assure that his agenda, getting the guy who 'tried to kill my daddy,' was carried out. 

 

Republicans still use 9/11 as their rallying cry.  Iraq had no Al Qaeda, and definitely had no part in the attack on U.S. soil on 9/11.  I protested the war from the start--but not out of disrespect for our troops.  The 'flower children' who protested Vietnam were heroes, not traitors.  They changed the direction of the government's involvement and got us out of Vietnam thru pressure.  It'll take that pressure once more to get us out of Iraq, but we will get out.  We are not a stabilizing influence in the Middle East, we are the catalyst for violence.    

 

The suicide rate among those troops is higher than in any war.  Perhaps that is because they know it is immoral and illegal, yet they are tasked with doing their duty which they do so well.  No one respects our troops more than I.

 

It's the leadership of our government that I despise.  President Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and many others deserve the disrespect--no, not just disrespect, they deserve to be tried in an international tribunal for war crimes. It's obvious that our own Congress' power has been seriously eroded by the Bush administration due to the 'signing statements' Bush used to interpret laws passed by Congress...otherwise we'd be out of Iraq (and saving lives) by now.  One protester, an Iraq Veteran Against The War, had it right when he held up a sign at the Republican National Convention that read, "YOU CAN'T WIN AN OCCUPATION."

 

So true, so true.

 

Jim