Israel at War?

[DeltAlum]

It's funny. I wrote the following yesterday morning but decided not to post it because it doesn't really have anything to do with Israel at war -- the topic of this thread. For some reason, I decided to save it which I've never done before.

Then I watched national news last night and the testimony of Secretary McNamara and several top generals who basically re-enforced my thoughts and worries.

So, since the thread has been pretty much hijacked already, I guess I'll post it after all:

Well, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but here's what I think.

Think. Remember that word.

I think the administration blatantly lied.

I don't see a clear exit strategy.

I think it's possible that, with the exception of getting rid of Sadaam, we may leave Iraq is worse shape than when we entered.

The infrastructure still doesn't work. Hundreds of non-combatant people are being killed per week. Terror is rampant.

I believe that our top officials want the world to look like us -- or like they want it to look.

Some round pegs will never fit in square holes. Not every country is ready for democracy. Some may never be.

I don't understand why we don't see that.

I see top level officials who think they can do pretty much anything they want with impunity.

I think that our leaders expect us to accept everything they say as fact and attack those who disagree as unpatriotic.

When things go wrong, blame the media. It's easier than fixing the mistakes.

I worry that some of our liberties and freedoms are being trampled.

We've seen government reports of State Department agencies and contractors like Halliburton misusing funds and lying. I think those things will be proven and we will see more of them.

Graft and war seem to go hand-in-hand.

If Iraq isn't in civil war -- it's damned close. The place is out of control and the government can't do a thing about it.

Nor can we, it seems.

I think it will be a long time before the Iraqi government/security forces are ready to take over from us. I mean years. If ever.

I see a lot of parallels from the Vietnam experience -- but I said that a long time ago. At least there aren't as many U.S. casualties. Thankfully.

As it was in Southeast Asia, I see our military, for the most part, performing brilliantly -- but the professional officers being ignored by politicians. The grunts get the brunt of it. It's the privates and corporals and sergeants that mostly get killed and maimed.

I think we will see the split in the country over these issues widening the longer the conflict continues.

What bothers me most, is that I've felt all of these frustrations before and I had hoped we had learned from them.

I don't think we did. Deja Vu all over again.

Well, those are some of the things I think. I could be wrong, but they say that history repeats itself.

I think it's doing just that.

20/20 hindsight.

Yes. I'm frustrated.

How did you guess?