It's a lie, and as the mother of a son who served for over a year in Baghdad to help keep YOU free, I resent it.
Well, look, first of all, I want to make clear that any hostility was directed at the other guy. He was being a jerk, and I feel I responded appropriately.
Second, the burden of whether the war was worth 1,700 American soldiers' and marines' deaths is squarely on those who were so eager to get us there in the first place.
I admire your son's service, I have three close friends who have done time there and one who is still there (we send him liquor in vizine contact solution bottles). The argument doesn't rest on who served or how close to them we are. It rests on whether this particular invasion served our national interest.
The results I have seen are higher energy prices and lots of dead bodies. It's great that Iraqis get Democracy, but I don't see that as any of our business, and we never would have invaded if that had been the justification. Plus, many jihadis who could never have made it all the way over here for reasons of money or detection, now have an opportunity to travel to Iraq and shoot at people like your son instead, or just murder Iraqis.
If we wanted a strong strategic ally there, we would have installed a new dictator or made some kind of deal with Saddam that would have given him incentive to go after al Qaeda there.
Our totally irresponsible neglect of our own borders is sufficient to guarantee that nothing we do in Iraq can possibly make us safer at home. The terrorists are not that stupid. They are not bugs attracted to a glowing light.