I'm not "scared" of the term. I just recognize where you got it from - the left.
Your accusation that Bush was swayed by "politics" regarding Iraq is just silly, and not one bit conservative, as I highly suspect you are not. If he had been playing politically and not strategically and defensively, he would have pulled out of Iraq as the left and many hapless Americans wanted him to (I'm sure you're part of that crowd). But since he wanted to win and keep us safe rather than play politics, he stayed the course, against the advice of guys like Obama (and you?), who wanted us to lose, we ended up winning and Iraq is free.
Game over, FTJM. Feel free to play your games somewhere else.
Your response was moronic, could be that you are too.
I didn't get the term "occupation" from the Left. I got it from history. That's what you do after you've defeated a country. Look no further than Japan and Germany. Why? Because it is necessary and because it works.
The Left screamed occupation and the Muslims screamed crusade so Bush went out of his way not to appear to be occupying the country. It was a huge mistake, WE SHOULD OCCUPY IRAQ with massive troop numbers FROM THE START. I never shied away from the term and disagreed with Bush waiting unbelievably long to do it, not to mention reducing those troop levels before he left office for political reasons. Vietnam taught us never to let politics get in the way of war, Bush did. That you don't see that shows how blind you are.
The fact is that Bush didn't invade Iraq, because we were already there and Iraq was in direct violation of the terms of the ceasefire signed by Bush I and Powell when they wimped out half way to Baghdad. Bush prosecuted the war with politics in mind and it gave the Democrats the opening that they needed. Saddam didn't need to have WND (even though he did) for us to take him out and we needed large numbers of troops to go in and OCCUPY the entire country. We let a quagmire develop with a weak plan that was used to win elections.
The last thing my position is, is leftist. You have zero intellectual integrity by accusing anyone with a different point of view as a liberal playing games.