Comments

1
WTF??? Oh, that's right, it wasn't their children being killed. And now their cherished, holy, sacred oil companies can exploit away!!!
2
Hopefully, Obama will be blunt about what a horrible clusterfuck tragedy this whole thing has been, how imperfect our exit strategy is, and how deeply screwed Iraq-- and the idea of American exceptionalism -- are because of Republicans and their war/oil profiteer brethren.
3
#2 - He won't. But keep dreamin'!
4
Some enterprising young reporter should book an interview now with Boner for six months down the road when 50-60 car bombs and a thousand dead per week, rising sectarian violence, and an increasingly corrupt and ineffectual Iraqi government have the U.S. dithering about whether to send 200,000 troops and armor back to Iraq for Surge II. Lather, rinse, repeat.
5
Wow... Mission Accomplished. Where's my flight suit?
6
I for one am glad President Obama is ending the two foreign civil wars of Republican adventure and will have all our troops home for Xmas.
7
by 'the surge', does he mean the bribes we paid the sunnis to stop killing us temporarily? boehner makes me hate ohio more than is rational.
8
Whatever...
9
Give it a 100 years or so to marinate and then, maybe, we can objectively judge.
10
Max, hating Ohio because of Boehner? Is that like saying all Jews are aggressive, opportunistic, and warmongering because of Bush's neocon cabal?
Here's a ballsy intro by Ari Shavitt back in 2003:
The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservative intellectuals, most of them Jewish....
http://www.grailwerk.com/docs/haaretzdai…
11
@10: I hate Ohio because for me to get there without taking wild detours, I'd have to drive through Gary, Indiana.
12
@7 yes.

As opposed to paying 3-5 times the total amount we pay for a combat soldier, for the privilege of hiring mercenaries from GOP-owned "military contractor" firms.
13
I wrote a fantasy presidential speech in anticipation. I know Obama will be a big sweet softy about all this because he would never want to hurt a Republican's feelings, but a kid can dream, can't he?

I wish Obama would just outline the history of our justifications for going into Iraq. I'm bored at work, so I wrote my own little presidential speech for fun.

'First, America believed we should go to war with Iraq because they were told Saddam Hussein was responsible for 9/11. Then we believed because we were told Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Then we believed that it was our responsibility to bring Democracy to the Middle East.

There was no connection between 9/11 and Iraq, there were never any weapons of Mass Destruction, and America should never use force to change a nationโ€™s way of life.

After our original justifications for our attack of Iraq were exposed to the light of truth, found to be false, we stayed in Iraq because we were already there. Because we had destroyed a country, and it was our responsibility to build it back up.

As we take a moment to reflect, let us reflect on the sacrifices those troops and the people of Iraq have made in the changing causes of this war. Millions of Iraqis have been displaced, or forced to flee the country, hundreds of thousands of their civilians are dead, thousands of our troops bravely sacrificed their lives, and thousands more have lost limbs, or suffered permanent injury. And these great United States has spent trillions of dollars in this venture, and created a crippling deficit in the process.

What were those brave sacrifices for? We did not stop or slow Radical Islamic Terrorism through attacking Iraq. We did not prevent a WMD attack against the United States. And though Iraq has gained a measure of stability it lost as a result of our invasion, it is not as safe or stable as it once was.

But the American spirit demands success from our endeavors. We're a country that likes to win. But the finish line for Iraq is not what it was when we were convinced that invasion was necessary.

So how do we make this war in Iraq a win? We reflect on the differences between our justifications for war, and the sacrifices millions of people have made, and we resolve never to let this happen again. We will have won in Iraq if we have learned from our mistakes. We will have won in Iraq if we don't allow our leaders to send our brave soldiers to war without getting their facts straight. We will have won the war in Iraq if we as a country never go to war with disregard for the horrific consequences of war. We will have won the war in Iraq if we never make the mistake we made in attacking Iraq in the first place.'

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