Mission Accomplished?

Tonight's TV news showed joyous scenes of our military members returning from Iraq to be united with their families.

Those who answer their country's call have every right to be proud of what they did.

Those who sent them into Iraq with the flimsiest of excuses and a bodyguard of lies have nothing to be proud of.

I have not forgotten the air of triumph exuded by the neocons who pushed this policy. From their standpoint, getting the United States to go to war against Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with 9/11, was a great accomplishment.

There was no wisdom here.

It is well to turn the future of Iraq back over to the Iraqis. Where will this lead? No one knows. There are those who believe our presence has accomplished little in the long run other than to strengthen the political and military influnce of Iran in the region.

I'm not prepared to accept this view, either. We shall see.

For a cautionary tale, one might read the triumphant celebration of victory penned by the leading neo-conservative, Richard Perle, in USA Today in the spring of 2003:

Posted 5/1/2003 5:44 PM
Relax, celebrate victory "By Richard Perle From start to finish, President Bush has led the United States and its coalition partners to the most important military victory since World War II. And like the allied victory over the axis powers, the liberation of Iraq is more than the end of a brutal dictatorship: It is the foundation for a decent, humane government that will represent all the people of Iraq. This was a war worth fighting. It ended quickly with few civilian casualties and with little damage to Iraq's cities, towns or infrastructure. It ended without the Arab world rising up against us, as the war's critics feared, without the quagmire they predicted, without the heavy losses in house-to-house fighting they warned us to expect. It was conducted with immense skill and selfless courage by men and women who will remain until Iraqis are safe, and who will return home as heroes." How long is a quagmire? How many lives is a quagmire? How much blood and treasure  is a quagmire?