redblueamerica.com

Sorry to break it to you but the "surge" wasn't about adding extra troops permanently to Iraq. The extra troops were to be stationed in and around Baghdad so as to keep the violence down and (hopefully) allow the elected officials in the Iraqi government time to get their act together. Unfortunately, it seems that the government spent the time falling apart, so the mission militarily was a success but the desired end state was not achieved. Now it seems as though the "surge" troops are going to wind up staying in Iraq, so the "surge" turned in to an increase in overall troop levels extended to an unknown date.

As far as the Oil for Food program goes, I'm not exactly sure why some government graft required the use of the Army, Marines, Airforce and Navy to invade and occupy Iraq.

Comparing the costs of the "War on Terror" and the lefty/righty social programs/tax cuts (or increases depending on how you look at it) isn't an honest comparison. When a country uses taxes to raise money to fund a social program or develop, construct, and maintain some civil infrastructure the goal is to directly benefit the society at large (Social Security, Medicare, Veterans Administration, your favorite branch of the military, Police, Firefighters, FCC, FEC, EPA, etc...). The idea is to pay for something that won't be quickly expended (if the goal is some type of civil infrastructure) like a bridge or road that everybody can take advantage of.

When you take the tax money and spend it on war, there is a very good chance that you will wind up having less to show for the amount of money that you spent. Bombs, bullets, explosives, combat life-saver kits, costs to train soldiers, marines, etc, costs to research, produce, store, the cost to treat the injured and wounded, the extra pay for combat/hazardous duty... (the list can go on and on)... are things that the general public at large will not benefit directly from. I'm fine with keeping troops at the ready in case of emergencies and invasions, but pre-emptive war on information that was known to be utter bullshit coupled with the asinine excuse that "if we leave Iraq, we let the terra-ists win, and dishonor those who have lost their lives..." seems stupid.

I'd have no problems living with my experiences in the military and Iraq had we had an actual mission after we blasted our way to Baghdad in 2003, if some high-up muckity mucks had taken reconstruction seriously and fixed all of the shit that was destroyed during the invasion/occupation, and if the Bush 2 administration had left the Iraqi people to figure things out for themselves without feeling that they went from being ruled by one bloody dictator to being ruled by a horde of bloody dictators backed by a foreign occupying military force. Starting wars on a lie, a complete lie, for no good reason was/is no way to do things.

The Left has this tendency to lay all of our problems at the feet of the Iraq war. Now they are trying to say that the war was too costly. Never, of course, do we hear from them that their social programs -- which are generally many multiples more expensive than Iraq war -- are too expensive.

Of course, we never hear from the left that the multiple billion dollar scandal known as the Oil for Food program that killed millions because that program was set up by the beloved Clinton.

First we were told that it would be a quagmire, that we would never get bin Laden or Hussein, and that we would lose tens of thousands of American lives. Although we haven't found bin Laden yet -- it took many more years to find Eric Rudolph and he was living in the U.S. -- we've accomplished most of our goals. Casualties are down now that we have the surge in place and the Iraqi politicians are beginning to make headway. They aren't a perfect democracy in any stretch of the term, but then again, neither are we.

I might be one of the few libertarians that is for the war. I think, though, that a smarter tactic would have been to end the sanctions.