Priority of America’s basic problems.

1. End the Iraq War
2. Remain dedicated to overcoming terrorism.
3. Large reduction in DOD spending
4. Provide basic medical insurance to all Americans.
5. Overhaul the tax structure and establish progressive payments.
6. Balance the budget and pay for it now.
7. How to rebuild New Orleans and pay for it now.
   
   I’m going to give you my take on each one of these major problems in America over the next few weeks. Here’s my thinking on the Iraq War.
   
   The Iraq War was wrong from the start and is a failure. It was an immoral war in that Iraq never made any attempt to attack the USA and never had any capability to do so. It was sold to the American people based on three lies. Iraq possessed WMD (nuclear, biological, chemical), Iraq provided aid and comfort to Al-Qaeda, and Iraq was an imminent threat to America. After these falsehoods were exposed, and our conquest and occupation of Iraq went sour; we were told our real mission in Iraq was to help the Iraqis people establish a democracy which would end all terrorist activities in Iraq and establish a beacon of peace throughout the whole Arab world. It is not working, and IMO will not work. We are not safer, and we are in fact creating more new terrorists in Iraq than Al-Qaeda could have ever hoped for. We should withdraw 25,000 US troops every three months until the US military is completely out of Iraq. If Iraq wishes to be a friend of America, we should provide them foreign aid to at least equal what we give to Israel each year. If Iraq wants us to help them rebuild their military, bring a division or two over to the USA each year, and we will train them here. The militant Muslins want us out of the Middle East, so let us get out and stay out. So you might say that is playing into the hands of Al-Qaeda, in that one of Al-Qaedas objectives is to get us out of the mid-east. But it does not follow that Al-Qaeda will then take over Iraq and launch new 9/11s from there on America. We got 2000 dead US soldier’s plus their widows and orphans and 15,000 or so wounded and got ourselves into the torture business; we have killed 15,000 – 20,000 Iraqis, and the Iraqis have killed another 40,000-50,000 of their own kind. Nobody has any idea how may Iraqis have been wounded. Iraq has been destroyed. We don’t speak their language, we don’t know their culture, and their religion is alien to us. But President Bush tells us we are going to turn this into a freedom loving democracy. I say Bush is wrong. ‘Cut and run’ is a lie. Our armed forces totally defeated Iraq’s armies in short order with few US causalities and were most merciful to Saddam’s armed forces. There is nothing to ‘cut and run’ from. The US Army and Marine Corps did accomplish their mission (never mind that aircraft carrier PR job by Bush). The mission of our armed forces is not to rebuild a conquered nation into a democracy or any other kind of society or government. The longer we stay in Iraq, the longer our KIA and WIA lists will become, more and more dead Iraqis, Iraqis hate of us will burn for one hundred years, and in another half dozen years our guilt will force us to leave. Go and read Robert McNamara - In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. No, Iraq is not Vietnam. But take McNamara’s eleven principles on how we were wrong about Vietnam and think about Iraq. If you don’t get the message, then George Santayana wins again.