The Sunshine Empire

When talk of who is responsible for the Iraq War debacle occurs, invariably one side will declare that the war was based on lies to the lack of any weapons of mass destruction. The other side will counter normally with the claim that Saddam Hussain was killing and torturing his own people, and that the WMD issue should be forgotten due to the saving of the Iraqi people from untimely death. We will need to continue the occupation because the minute we leave, the killing begins.

Today a study has been released stating that 151,000 Iraqis have died violently between the invasion in 2003 and June of 2006. We certainly are not providing any benefit to the Iraqis. That is no fault of the thousands of soldiers caught in George W. Bush’s efforts to punt his disaster to the next President. We are not stopping these people from killing each other. Elements of the United States military where arguing just some months ago for a declaration of victory over AQI. So I ask you, what is the need for continued U.S. presence in Iraq? Hundreds of thousands are already dead, the terrorists are in Pakistan, and staggering numbers of Americans and military family members want us gone.