I always drew my moral clarity about Iraq from being there and doing the good things we did for those folks. All we asked was that they don’t kill us and we’ll fix what we broke toppling they’re dictator. You would think toppling dictators would be enough of a cause for most folks. You would think killing the dictators two sadistic murderous sons would be enough. But no. Not to the Anti-War crowd who have the likes of Carter who never met a dictator he didn’t like.

My greatest sense of moral clarity came from my time in Iraq while I was in Mosul at FOB Courage, an old Ba’ath Party palace compound. There was a decent perimeter worth using as a running route to keep in shape, part of that ran by a serene man made lake in front of one of Saddam’s son’s palaces. It was beautiful, and it was terrible, but at least 21 families learned where they’re daughters had disappeared during the reign of terror prior to our invasion. When US Forces first took over that compound, they drained the lake and recovered the remains of those women, identified them, and returned them to family members for proper burial. Saddam’s boys had enjoyed the ability to take any woman they wanted, rape them, kill them, and toss them out in the pond.

While I’ve never had the numbers, that little personal piece of history is more than enough to justify the invasion and the downfall of the Saddam and his sons. After all, that was just ONE palace of HUNDREDS across the country, along with the mass graves we’ve discovered and continue to assist the Iraqis in finding.

WMD’s, I’m sure they are out there somewhere, but after seeing the inner workings of the Ba’ath Party in Iraq, I can’t say that there is ANY scandal in destroying them. Feeling sorry for Saddam is just sympathy for the Devil, sympathy for Hitler, and sympathy for any other molesting rapist murderous SOB.

Just to inform you that I noticed a typo in my post – the figure of 601,895 is corect, not 600,807. Sorry about that!

I don’t think many of the things Bush/Cheney did was right, and if history is written with any integrity in the future, he wasn’t as awful as liberals make him out to be (No worse than the Kennedy’s were given the challenges handed to him!). He was a centrist, gave away too much of our sovereignty, and Cheney’s connection to Haliburton points to corruption in the government contract system… but… those things have been happening for decades and Iraq has been handled with honor by our troops, and lives were saved, as you point out. Most of the civilian deaths are traceable to the “imported Al Qaeda operatives” and not our troops who have defined rules of engagement that have cost many their lives.

Reading William F. Buckley Jr.’s “mission statement” for the National Review was incredible for me. He points to all that is happening now! This was written in 1954/55!!!!! I find myself clinging to it and reading more WFB. I am sick of being manipulated by liberal bullying and propaganda. The best way to work one’s way through the sewer, is to cling to the writings of the enlightened ones, like Jefferson, Webster, and yes, William F. Buckley.

The mission statement moved me. Read it here.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDJhYTJjNWI0MWFiODBhMDc2MzQwY2JlM2RhZjk5ZjM=