Sorry, guys but I believe you are wearing both sentiment and a lack of will on your sleeves. It was not the President alone who put our uniformed men and women into harm's way. I recollect Congressional approval prior to deployment, and as an old soldier myself, it is my humble opinion that whenever our military is committed to any conflict they are done so with simply victory as the only outcome. Any and all resources are to be provided and especially no political grandstanding regardless of changing poll numbers.
I give the point that mistakes were made, but it is simply time to put aside political ambitions and get behind those who serve you proudly. To simply say, "bring the troops home" only showcases very short memories of what happens when we leave prior to completing the mission. Ask those that have been there or those enroute, and you will get a both an honest and accurate depiction of what the real story is vice what someone who is employed to espouse sensationalism.
Bottom line: Where does one place credibility? Someone who has first hand information or someone who gets paid to read a teleprompter.

If I understand you correctly, your point is that the troops need to be supported and kept in place until the job is done. But, I submit to you that, logically, that is a difficult position.

I recollect Congressional approval prior to deployment, and as an old soldier myself, it is my humble opinion that whenever our military is committed to any conflict they are done so with simply victory as the only outcome. .... I give the point that mistakes were made, but it is simply time to put aside political ambitions and get behind those who serve you proudly.

Unfortunately, the Congressional approval was obtained through fraud and deception. That's not a mistake; it is very possibly a high crime or misdemeanor. And why does that mean we have to continue the pursuit of a failed strategy? CEOs get fired from successful companies before they can run the company into the ground; why should the American citizenry accept any other level of performance from its Executive Officer? If someone dupes you into a pyramid scheme, you don't stay in it on the belief that they will eventually restore your money to you.

To date, no one has defined what it will look like when the job is "done". No one has consistently defined what "job" our brave service men and women were sent to do and no one has ever explained how to determine if the troops were "successful" in doing that job. With respect, I don't know how one can commit the troops to victory without defining all of those things. So, for my part, the administration has simply failed to give me a good reason to support the Iraqi war such that I could support continuing to put our troops in harm's way; that's not a lack of will as much as it is the lack of a well-defined mission -- including an exit strategy.

I understand your point and I truly appreciate the experience that you bring to the discussion but, I have to say that there is no easy way to clean up a mess that someone else made and it simply isn't acceptable to me to just let the mess go unabated.

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If you and I are always in agreement, one of us is likely armed and dangerous.

YOU SAID: If I understand you correctly, your point is that the troops need to be supported and kept in place until the job is done. But, I submit to you that, logically, that is a difficult position.

I agree with Mikek and disagree with you.

MIKEK SAID: I recollect Congressional approval prior to deployment, and as an old soldier myself, it is my humble opinion that whenever our military is committed to any conflict they are done so with simply victory as the only outcome. .... I give the point that mistakes were made, but it is simply time to put aside political ambitions and get behind those who serve you proudly.

YOU SAY: Unfortunately, the Congressional approval was obtained through fraud and deception. Wow- Really?

Clinton Said - "Heavy as they are, the costs of action must be weighed against the price of inaction. If Saddam defies the world and we fail to respond, we will face a far greater threat in the future. Saddam will strike again at his neighbors; he will make war on his own people. And mark my words, he will develop weapons of mass destruction. He will deploy them, and he will use them."

President Clinton
National Address from the Oval Office
December 16, 1998

YOU SAY: That's not a mistake; it is very possibly a high crime or misdemeanor.

CNN Said: How did Hussein intend to use the weapon, once it was completed?

HAMZA: Saddam has a whole range of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, biological and chemical. According to German intelligence estimates, we expect him to have three nuclear weapons by 2005. So, the window will close by 2005, and we expect him then to be a lot more aggressive with his neighbors and encouraging terrorism, and using biological weapons. Now he's using them through surrogates like al Qaeda, but we expect he'll use them more aggressively then.

Dr. Khidhir Hamza, former Iraqi Nuclear Scientist for 20 years
Interviewed on CNN
October 22, 2001
http://www.cnn.com/2001/COMMUNITY/10/22/hamza.cnna/

AND MORE CLINTON:

"His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of his region, and the security of all the rest of us.

What if he fails to comply, and we fail to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to ignore the solemn commitments that he made?

Well, he will conclude that the international community has lost its will. He will then conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of devastating destruction.

And some day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal."

President Clinton
Address to Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pentagon staff
February 17, 1998 http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/17/transcripts/clinton.iraq/

AND

"Every nation has to either be with us, or against us. Those who harbor terrorists, or who finance them, are going to pay a price."

Senator Hillary Clinton (Democrat, New York)
September 13, 2001
http://www.wavsource.com/news/20010911a.htm

AND

"We stopped the fighting [in 1991] on an agreement that Iraq would take steps to assure the world that it would not engage in further aggression and that it would destroy its weapons of mass destruction. It has refused to take those steps. That refusal constitutes a breach of the armistice which renders it void and justifies resumption of the armed conflict."

Senator Harry Reid (Democrat, Nevada)
Addressing the US Senate
October 9, 2002
Congressional Record, p. S10145
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/
cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=S10145&dbname=2002_record

AND

"In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more the very kind of threat Iraq poses now -- a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers or organized criminals who travel the world among us unnoticed.

If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the knowledge that they can act with impunity, even in the face of a clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program."

President Clinton
Address to Joint Chiefs of Staff and Pentagon staff
February 17, 1998
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1998/02/17/transcripts/clinton.iraq/

AND

Senator John Edwards, when asked about "Axis of Evil" countries Iran, Iraq, and North Korea:

"I mean, we have three different countries that, while they all present serious problems for the United States -- they're dictatorships, they're involved in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction -- you know, the most imminent, clear and present threat to our country is not the same from those three countries. I think Iraq is the most serious and imminent threat to our country."

Senator John Edwards (Democrat, North Carolina)
During an interview on CNN's "Late Edition"
February 24, 2002
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0202/24/le.00.html

AND

"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a serious danger, that he is a tyrant, and that his pursuit of lethal weapons of mass destruction cannot be tolerated. He must be disarmed."

Senator Edward Kennedy (Democrat, Massachusetts)
Speech at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
September 27, 2002
http://kennedy.senate.gov/~kennedy/statements/02/09/2002927718.html

AND

"In the four years since the inspectors left, intelligence reports show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort, and sanctuary to terrorists, including Al Qaeda members...

It is clear, however, that if left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will continue to increase his capacity to wage biological and chemical warfare, and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons."

Senator Hillary Clinton (Democrat, New York)
Addressing the US Senate
October 10, 2002
http://clinton.senate.gov/speeches/iraq_101002.html

AND

Congressman Gephardt links Saddam with the threat of terrorists nuking US cities:

BOB SCHIEFFER, Chief Washington Correspondent:

And with us now is the Democratic presidential candidate Dick Gephardt. Congressman, you supported taking military action in Iraq. Do you think now it was the right thing to do?

REP. RICHARD GEPHARDT, D-MO, Democratic Presidential Candidate:

I do. I base my determination on what I heard from the CIA. I went out there a couple of times and talked to everybody, including George Tenet. I talked to people in the Clinton administration.

SCHIEFFER:

Well, let me just ask you, do you feel, Congressman, that you were misled?

GEPHARDT:

I don't. I asked very direct questions of the top people in the CIA and people who'd served in the Clinton administration. And they said they believed that Saddam Hussein either had weapons or had the components of weapons or the ability to quickly make weapons of mass destruction. What we're worried about is an A-bomb in a Ryder truck in New York, in Washington and St. Louis. It cannot happen. We have to prevent it from happening. And it was on that basis that I voted to do this.

Congressman Richard Gephardt (Democrat, Montana)
Interviewed on CBS News "Face the Nation"
November 2, 2003
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/03/ftn/printable581509.shtml

AND

"We have not reached parity with them. We have the right to kill 4 million Americans -- 2 million of them children -- and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands. Furthermore, it is our right to fight them with chemical and biological weapons, so as to afflict them with the fatal maladies that have afflicted the Muslims because of the [Americans'] chemical and biological weapons."

Islamic terrorist group "Al Qaeda"
June 12, 2002
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP38802

AND

"Iraq is a long way from Ohio, but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."

Madeleine Albright, President Clinton's Secretary of State
Town Hall Meeting on Iraq at Ohio State University
February 18, 1998
http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1998/02/20/98022006_tpo.html

"No one has done what Saddam Hussein has done, or is thinking of doing. He is producing weapons of mass destruction, and he is qualitatively and quantitatively different from other dictators."

Madeleine Albright, President Clinton's Secretary of State
Town Hall Meeting on Iraq at Ohio State University
February 18, 1998
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9802/18/town.meeting.folo/

AND

"Imagine the consequences if Saddam fails to comply and we fail to act. Saddam will be emboldened, believing the international community has lost its will. He will rebuild his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And some day, some way, I am certain, he will use that arsenal again, as he has ten times since 1983."

"In April 2004 I was in the first push through Fallujah after the four American contractors were murdered, desecrated and hung from a bridge. I was critically wounded after I was shot through the hip in a firefight and nearly bled out on the battlefield. It was six months before I was able to walk semi-normally on my own more than 20 feet unaided by crutches or a wheel chair. In December of 2004 I was medically retired, and even now over two years later I still cannot run and I honestly don't think I will be regaining that ability in this lifetime.... Well I have had multiple people ask me about what I think about everything going on over there and I always respond the same way.... I reach into my wallet and pull out a card and let them read it. It speaks for itself; I don't need to say a word. I received this shortly after the invasion in 2003, a young boy walked up to me with his father who was standing behind him with his hands on his shoulders and just reached out his hand and gave this to me.... Sure there are those who want us dead and gone and will do anything to get rid of us, but they are a minority."

The soldier enclosed a copy of the card. It has a big heart on the front, and inside it reads: "Thank you George Bush. Thank you American soldiers. Thank you Marines [sic] soldiers. To save us. We are so grateful. Your friend, Ali Ahmed. An Iraqi boy, 9 years old. 2003.4.15 Wedensday [sic]."
______________________________________

Okay, so that's one soldier. But a reporter from The New York Times saw things the same way. On April 10, 2003, John F. Burns filed this story from Baghdad:

"Saddam Hussein's rule collapsed in a matter of hours today across much of this capital city as ordinary Iraqis took to the streets in their thousands to topple Mr. Hussein's statues, loot government ministries and interrogation centers and to give a cheering, often tearful welcome to advancing American troops.

" ...Army and Marine Corps units moving into the districts of eastern Baghdad where many of the city's 5 million people live finally met the kind of adulation from ordinary Iraqis that American advocates of a war to topple Mr. Hussein had predicted....

"Much of Baghdad became, in a moment, a showcase of unbridled enthusiasm for America...

"American troops, but almost as much any Westerner caught up in the tide of people rushing into the streets, were met with scenes that summoned comparisons to the freeing of Eastern Europe 14 years ago....

"Shouts to the American soldiers of 'Thank you, mister, thank you,' in English, of 'Welcome, my friend, welcome,' of 'Good, good, good,' and 'Yes, yes, mister,' mingled with cries of 'Good, George Bush!' and 'Down Saddam!'...

"A middle-aged man pushed through a crowd attempting to topple a statue of Mr. Hussein outside the oil ministry with a bouquet of paper flowers, and passed among American troops distributing them one at a time, each with a kiss on the cheek.

"A woman with two small children perched in the open roof of a car maneuvering to get close to a Marine Corps unit assisting in toppling a Hussein statue outside the Palestine and Sheraton hotels, the quarters for foreign journalists, wept as she shouted, 'Thank you, mister, thank you very much.'...
__________________________________________________

Gen. Georges Sada, the No. 2 ranking general in the Iraqi Air Force, said the same thing when I interviewed him Feb. 9, 2006.

I said, "You said the president did the right thing in invading Iraq -- "

"Excuse me," said Sada, "you say invading, I always say liberating.... In most provinces of Iraq and Kurdistan, the forces were received with cheers and flowers, in the South, it was the same thing in my province." The people living in the Sunni triangle did not consider Americans liberators, he explained, because Sunnis ran things. "When they found that this is all gone, of course they didn't like it."

The Iraqis show more optimism about their country than Americans show about theirs. According to a November 2005 American Research Group poll, 31 percent of Americans believe their household financial situations will improve over the next year. But, according to a December 2005 ABC News poll, 69 percent of Iraqis expect their lives to improve in the coming year.

"A free, democratic Iraq, an example in the Middle East"
Some have described the situation in Iraq as a tightening noose, noting that "time is not on our side"and that "morale is down." Others have described a "very dangerous" turn of events and are "extremely concerned."
Who are they that have expressed these concerns? In fact, these are the exact words of terrorists discussing Iraq -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his associates -- who are describing their own situation and must be watching with fear the progress that Iraq has made over the past three years. (We have since killed Al Zarqawi in Iraq).

THEY get it why don’t you??

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I have no argument with what you said or how you said it.

I just wanted to be the first one to congratulate you for beating Muddles record for longest blog.

Yep.

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I'm not even going to pretend that I read all of that. I noticed that a lot of it was 3+ years old and that we have determined that the source of the post 9-11 allegations about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction was faulty (to put it kindly) but I'll just get right to my point.

None of it included the definition of the mission that led us into this war in Iraq, what constitutes victory and an exit strategy.

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If you and I are always in agreement, one of us is likely armed and dangerous.

I know you didn't read it. If you had you would realize the reason it was over three years 'old' was because we invaded Iraq over three years ago and so you could see where the intelligence came from and who said it - I know you don’t want to really know that though since it would prove you are wrong, ill informed, and lost. You would love to think that "Bush made it all up" but those quotes prove that you are wrong.

You also would have seen this: (Success Defined)

We have to define success every day for you democrats don’t we? – HERE yet again is the White House Version:

• Short term, Iraq is making steady progress in fighting terrorists, meeting political milestones, building democratic institutions, and standing up security forces.
• Medium term, Iraq is in the lead defeating terrorists and providing its own security, with a fully constitutional government in place, and on its way to achieving its economic potential.
• Longer term, Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/iraq_strategy_nov2005.html

Right now troops are dodging bullets and you don't care enough to read why. That's sad. Here is your pathetic logic:

"I'm not even going to pretend that I read all of that ... followed by "None of it included the definition of the mission that led us into this war in Iraq, what constitutes victory and an exit strategy."

Spoken like a true liberal. Try reading what your party said before, during and after Bush was elected President.

Go back and read what the Democrats (Clinton, Edwards, Gore, Kerry, Albright, et al.,) said about Iraq and weapons of mass destruction - some while 'W' was just a little ole Governor from Texas. Those quotes I listed above that you didn't read but know about are from you Dems - not from Republicans. Are you afraid of the truth or do you REALLY want to know what has happened and from where?

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Is there bias on the war coverage? Click Here
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You are confusing people with the facts, and expecting them to base their opinions on those facts. It is much easier, and less time consuming, to let those who connect with you emotionally tell you what to think. Even if what they say one day is completely different the next.

Maximus

I used to be a Demagogue, err, I mean democrat. It's easy for me to know how they think.

Since I too was a democult, err, democrat member for a number of years before I realized that enabling is a mental disorder and fear of traditional American values is destroying our country from within, I can show them what they hate to see- facts.

The final straw for me was watching America get blamed over and over first and foremost by the national democratic leaders.

Here’s the sad truth, the Democratic Party has now positioned itself in such a way that if they war goes well, they lose. If the war goes badly, they win. How sad is that?

That’s why they all HAVE to now call for withdrawal – the leadership has already claimed a loss for America (Harry Reid) and a victory for Democrats and al-qaeda.

Where was there any attribution of my position to a particular party? I am not -- and will never be -- affiliated with any party. I have a brain and I like my politics without pre-digestion, thank you very much.

I'm an American, period.

I love and care about my country.

I hold the Constitution and the Bible in separate but almost equal regard.

I treasure our troops and their families.

What about ANY of that is attributable to party affiliation?

And if that is all your argument comes down to -- party affiliation -- then, by all means, keep drinking the Kool Aid while you let good men and women die for nothing. I'd bet good money you don't have any service-elligible children.

Oh, and, by the way . . . what you called "definitions" are primarily political solutions, which will never be accomplished by military might.

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If you and I are always in agreement, one of us is likely armed and dangerous.

The Democratic party - the one you have always voted with and will vote with in 2008 if you refuse to face the truth. Are you going to lie and say you aren't a Democrat? I used to be one - you can come over to the light side, it's okay.

Great job Mixer! I read the quotes and have used them before as well. Seems that changing the subject is always easier for a liberal than actually addressing the topic.

I love the quotes. I know that this fall they will try to run from thiem. Also, I too have had to point out the widely distrubuted goals for success in Iraq quite often.

I guess they have been left off of the liberal talking points memo. Too bad - they really should see the truth.

When you say pre-digested, do you mean like this:

Regime change in Iraq has been official US policy since 1998:

"It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime."

Iraq Liberation Act of 1998
105th Congress, 2nd Session
September 29, 1998 (Signed in to Law by Bill Clinton)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/1998/980929-in2.htm