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Coming home - disillusioned
seattletimes.nwsource.com ^ | April 12, 2006 | Christopher H. Sheppard

Posted on 04/17/2006 1:38:38 PM PDT by bad company

Three years ago, I was a Marine Corps captain on the Iraqi/Kuwaiti border, participating in the invasion of Iraq. Awestruck, I heard our howitzers thunder and watched artillery rockets rise into the night sky and streak toward Iraq — their light bathing the desert moonscape like giant arc welders. As I watched the Iraq war begin, I completely trusted the Bush administration. I thought we were going to prove all of the left-wing antiwar protesters and dissenters wrong. I thought we were going to make America safer. Regrettably, I acknowledge that it was I who was wrong. I believed the Bush administration when it said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. I believed its assertion that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium from Africa and refine it into weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb. I believed its claim Iraq had vast quantities of biological and chemical agents. After years of thorough inspections, all of these claims have been disproved. I believed the administration when it claimed there was overwhelming evidence Iraq was in cahoots with al-Qaida. In January 2004, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell admitted that there was no concrete evidence linking Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida. I believed the administration when it grandly proclaimed we were going to bring a stable, Western-style liberal democracy to Iraq, complete with religious tolerance and the rule of law. We never had enough troops in Iraq to restore civil order and the rule of law. The Iraqi elections have produced a ruling majority of Shiite fundamentalists and marginalized the seething Sunni minority. Iraq dangerously teeters on the brink of civil war. We have emboldened Iran and destabilized the entire Middle East.

(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; War on Terror
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To: trubluolyguy

"How do we know he was a lib when he joined?"

I know. Read post #40.


41 posted on 04/17/2006 4:05:47 PM PDT by divine_moment_of_facts ("Liberals see what they believe... Conservatives believe what they see")
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To: bad company
The Captain just proved the Peter Principle again. He reached a level of responsibility he did not, and does not, understand. I can scarcely imagine him as a career military officer. Something is wrong.
42 posted on 04/17/2006 4:10:06 PM PDT by shrinkermd
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To: bad company
I now know I wrongfully placed my faith and trust in a presidential administration hopelessly mired in incompetence, hubris and a lack of accountability. It planned a war based on false intelligence and unrealistic assumptions. It has strategically surrendered the condition of victory in Iraq to people who do not share our vision, values or interests. The Bush administration has proven successful at only one thing in Iraq — painting us into a corner with no feasible exit.

This tripe reads exactly like the paper they want the P.O.W., to sign, when they lead him into a room, and the paper is on the table in front of him, and some guy is screaming at him: "Sign this you Yankee Dog!"

I don't think that he wrote a single word of this statement.

43 posted on 04/17/2006 4:24:44 PM PDT by Plutarch
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To: bad company; All
Why U.S. Troops Re-Enlist in Record Numbers

April 14, 2006: In the last six months, the U.S. Army is seeing 15 percent more soldiers re-enlist than expected. This continues a trend that began in 2001. Every year since then, the rate at which existing soldiers have re-enlisted has increased. This despite the fact that 69 percent of the troops killed in Iraq have been from the army. New recruits continue to exceed join up at higher rates as well.

44 posted on 04/17/2006 4:40:15 PM PDT by Conservative Firster
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To: matt1234
...I live near Seattle and have been reading these rags for years...

I hope that you haven't been paying for them.

45 posted on 04/17/2006 5:00:18 PM PDT by OldPossum
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To: bad company

All this time and it took this long for one of the more liberal rags to find someone that had been to Iraq to agree with them?


46 posted on 04/18/2006 3:57:42 PM PDT by Ingtar (I witnessed the birth of IPW)
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