A friend forwarded me a link to http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=179009

It was a good read, not something I would have normally read.  But it does bring up two points I think are key to where we are today.

He said: “At the time the invasion was launched, polls showed over 70% of Americans in support of the President’s war (or in a state of terror about terror, should we not stop Saddam Hussein from nuking us).” Americans today have no real understanding of what they were thinking, nor did Congress (or the UN) when they voted for the use of force.  Looking back after Hitler, much of the world asked the US “Why did you wait so long to do something?”  Here we acted sooner (and before a second wave of attacks on US soil).  And now people do not understand the realities of Nation Building.  Look what happened when we pulled out of Mogadishu (It looks like someone now has to go back as the war has spread over much of Africa).  Building a nation takes years, decades, heck, even centuries (when did slavery end and blacks before true Americans?  For that matter women in this country?).  So it isn’t a situation where we can put a deadline.  The job will be done when the job will be done.  If we leave now, or God forbid, set a deadline.  The ‘bad guys’ (any ONE ethnic group in control of Iraq would be the bad guys) will just wait us out.  The day after the last US troops leave, the country will be taken control of with much deadlier force than we have used.  Think of Vietnam with the last Huey leaving the ground….  We (soldiers, myself included, though not in this fight) were asked to come, by the UN with congresses approval.  Let them finish their job.  Does a good parent give in and not punish your child because of the puppy dog eyes?  No, it is hard to do the job, but it is a job a good parent knows must be done.

He also stated that “Many fewer young people, I suspect, have any remnant of that deep faith that our political system could be responsive to them or that anything they could do might change it. When they look to Washington, what they see is fraud, dysfunction, conspiracy, cronyism, cabal, influence-peddling, corruption, fear — in short, a system, a world, beyond response, possibly beyond repair, and utterly alien to their lives. In such a situation, despair or apathy tends to replace anger and hope. “  I agree with this 100%, however, it isn’t just one party or the other.  It is all of them.  There is too much tit for tat going on in DC these days and all Americans are crying out.  How is Gonzales replacing a few lawyers different than when Clinton did it?  Did the Clinton not award contract to Halliburton? Look at what NAFTA has done to jobs in the US.  These days you have to have the pork… Too much of DC just wants to see their name in lights.  They want the credit, they want to be the hero, no matter the cost and regardless of the political party.  They want to be the one who saved jobs, balance the budget or kept more kids in school.