[Ghoulish Delight]

Here's my feelings on Iraq right now:

1) We went in under dubious circumstances at best. Congress may have been for it and may have been presented with an intelligence case that was at least partly convincing, but I personally was against it from beginning to end. The story was changing daily, the evidence the public was presented was never convincing and reeked of tailoring, and it was a major distraction from a far more important matter, dismantling Al Qaeda.

2) My suspicions were born out when, over the ensuing 5+ years, the administrations distortions, lies, willful blindness, and incompetence leading up to, and running, the war were revealed. In the best cases intelligence was wrong. In the worst cases, intelligences was falsified. In most cases, intelligence was filtered through a intense desire to find an excuse for war, cherry picking the scraps that supported the case and ignoring the counter points that tempered it. "We found some metal tubes. They're not really designed to be parts for weapons of mass destruction, but could in a pinch be used as such," became, "We've found parts for weapons of mass destruction!" Generals, on the ground in the theater, were routinely ignored, their assessments and requests pushed aside because they didn't paint the picture the administration wanted, and in some cases were fired for trying to disagree.

3) The result of all of the above, plus a distressing amount of ignorance regarding what we were going to face (who the hell goes into Iraq not expecting MASSIVE sectarian violence) was a war that could not be won outright, and a country in disarray and a huge step backwards in goal-du-jour of weakening terrorism.

4) I DO think we bare a responsibility of mending the mess we made. I have never been in favor of a summary pullout of troops and I do expect that we are going to have am effectively permanent military presence there for the foreseeable future.

5) That said, I can NOT take this administration's word, or the word anyone who is as in line with this administration as McCain is, at face value. I can NOT trust anyone who still cannot tell me the difference between Suni and Shia to know the right course. I can NOT put someone in charge who is okay with continuing the lie that fighting in Iraq=fighting Al Qaeda.

If Obama gets elected, looks at the situation in Iraq, looks a the data that intelligence and the military hands him, and decides, "Okay, we are making progress in cleaning up the disaster, and we need to see that through," people will be quick to brand him a hypocrite and to say that it vindicates what we've done over the last 5+ years. Bullsh*t. If he goes in there, and that's his analysis, fine. But just because they've by chance got it right now does not change the fact that Bush and company have been lying to us and screwing it up until now and does not change the fact that they have squandered ALL credibility in my eyes on matters foreign.

That is what I mean when I say I don't want a Hillary, who to me appeared likely to go in and blindly just start reversing everything she could just because it's the opposite of what Bush would have done. I do NOT want that. I want someone who is going to look at facts and make rational decisions, even if it happens to mean that some of those decisions would be the same.