I hated high school and did very poorly there (though I always liked to read). Lucky my state college had open admissions: went there because I met a girl who said if I took classes we could see each other every day, so I signed up, and happened to fall in love with the freedom of learning what I wanted to at the university. (alas, the girl left me). ended up to my surprise getting a ph.d.My children, for good or ill--we argue about it sometimes, its the way I raised them--were mostly home schooled, with occasional visits to the public school asylum to give them a taste of the broader society. I detest our secondary school systems. They were a nightmare to me and have not done much for our society, I think. Just glad I found a path in some college classes that lit me up with learning. I tell my students I could give a damn if they graduate or not: what I care about is if they learn to think for themselves. That is what liberal arts, as they call them, is all about.

....to Rocket 999 for lifting us out of the intellectual weeds. Boy, I sure hope I'M NOT THE STUPID one he's talking about.

BUT - I'm glad HE didn't support Saddam. Like SO MANY OF US DID!

Yeah, we're not really the "blame America first" crowd. We're just lost without Saddam.

Oh yeah. Rock on, dude.

(Sorry, Glenn. It's a real grind you got on your hands.)

The power of a draft

With such great distance from the war, I wonder if not only these journalists but all Americans would be far more aware of the situation in Iraq and far more demanding of our withdrawal if there was a draft and they couldn't ignore it as some other family's problem.

I've had similar thoughts, off and on...

but I'm wondering now if some empathy shouldn't be enough. I can think of at least three women from work who've all had someone in Iraq, a son, a brother, and a husband. The brother is still there. I've made a point in all three cases, of regularly asking how they were doing, how their relative was, etc., etc. I work in an academic setting, which in most quarters is considered "privileged."

I doubt that publishing or broadcasting companies have any less diversity among their employees. Just imagine, though, the kind of work environment those chickenhawks must inhabit (or perpetuate?) if there is not even a modicum of empathy for those who are perhaps lower on the food chain than they are, and actually have someone overseas in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Because instead of having anything useful to say or do people (like you) waste a lot of time and effort either crowing about how much smarter they are than I am (which to your audience of like minded bullies seems silly) or, they sort of make my point for me by declaring (as you do, repeatedly Paul) that only people who agree with you are people you deem worth hearing and anyone else is a

-retard

-asshole

-fascist

-tool

-evil

-zionist

-racist

-baby eater

(pick one)

or the ever popular 'troll' which is Salon shorthand for "I don't like you".

Be still my heart. I am wounded you don't like me. Why I woke up this morning hoping total strangers would like me.

So yeah, we made mistakes and we lost. But that doesn't mean that the war was entirely a bad idea.

Removing Hussein might have qualified as a reasonable goal, particularly if it signaled a serious shift in US policy towards other dictators and despots. As it happened, it didn't, and thus is the whole premise of the war and this disastrous occupation rendered null.

The Kurds are glad that we're there, and they're 20% of the population.

We've had assets in the Kurd region since 1991. Old news and an even worse excuse.

A lot of people have died, but a lot would have died under Hussein.

The last four years of occupation have killed more Iraqis than Hussein did in his quarter century-plus reign of terror. Plus which Iraq had a functioning infrastructure and society prior to the 2003 invasion.

Since then, 'Iraq' has become nothing more than a geographic notation.

The sectarian violence that we're seeing would likely have happened anyway, but in a few decades after Hussein died.

Which means hundreds of thousands (at least) of Iraqi Kurds, Shiite and Sunnis would still be alive and Iraq still a semi-functioning society.

Or should we have allowed his sons to come to power?

Was this likely? No one can say now.

There is such a thing as a just war (WWII is the best example), and this could have been one. It's too bad that it wasn't. And I can't fault those who supported it on humanitarian grounds.

WHO ever supported the start of this vainglorious march into Babylon on "humanitarian grounds" when it began? Name them, if you please!

This mutual admiration society where 99% of the readers all say and repeat the same things to one another over and over and over and where one can look at each day's front page for maybe 10 seconds know exactly what every article is going to say and what every letter writer is going to respond. Doesn't THAT get tedious Paul? Or is it like my mother always said, "The tyranny of the neurotic. You can't out talk them or out last them because that's the nature of being mentally ill."

You are exactly right.

Eventually, Iraq will become domestically tranquil--no nation stays chaotic for eternity. Republicans lack the basic critical thinking skills to understand that Iraq would have eventually become domestically tranquil even if the U.S. hadn't invaded.

Saddam would have keeled over soon enough and his sons may have succeeded him or the military may have taken control. Would Iraq have become free and democratic? Probably not, but then again, it isn't now, either.

Would the average Iraqi have been better off? There is no way to judge for sure, which in itself is an indictment of the foolishness of the U.S. invasion.

There is a critical mass of the American populace that lacks basic reasoning and thinking skills far beyond the ability to see that the invasion of Iraq was a fiasco.

Call them Deniers or some such name, but just as they are obstinate that the invasion of Iraq was fully justified, regardless of the lies on which it was based and the ways in which it was mismanaged, they are obstinate in their belief that everything good in America and the world emanates from the White House, and everything bad emanates from liberals/the New York Times/Hollywood/Glenn Greenwald.

This critical mass poses a real and long-term threat to any sensible future for the U.S. because it cares nothing about rational thought or critical thinking, it cares only about dogma and ideology.