Instead of learning the lessons of Vietnam, where all of the above happened, the president, the vice president, the secretary of defense and the deputy secretary of defense have gotten this country into a disaster in the desert.
They attacked a country that had not attacked us. They did so on intelligence that was faulty, misrepresented and highly questionable.
A key piece of that intelligence was an outright lie that the White House put into the president's State of the Union speech. These officials have overextended the American military, including the National Guard and the Reserve, and have expanded the U.S. Army to the breaking point.
A quarter of a million troops are committed to the Iraq war theater, most of them bogged down in Baghdad. Morale is declining and casualties continue to increase.
In addition to the human cost, the war in dollars costs $1 billion a week, adding to the additional burden of an already depressed economy.
The president has declared 'major combat over' and sent a message to every terrorist, 'Bring them on.' As a result, he has lost more people in his war than his father did in his and there is no end in sight.
Military commanders are left with extended tours of duty for servicemen and women who were told long ago they were going home. We are keeping American forces on the ground, where they have become sitting ducks in a shooting gallery for every terrorist in the Middle East.
Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President. Sorry you didn't go when you had the chance.
The Bush administration has apparently decided that some of their more egregious lies, such as Cheney's nuclear weapons claims, were 'misspoken'. What a pity they did not disavow them immediaely the 'misspeaking' was detected. After all, they would never want their 'misspeaking' to be believed, would they?
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