This is a personal, non-professional blog entry that pretty much sums up what I personally believe happened in Iraq. There were a zillion other reasons — including the PNAC’s desire to see the US as a kind of “benevolent” pseudo-empire, Halliburton wanted to make a crapload of money, and the self-admitted fact that Bush 43 wanted to avenge his Daddy’s almost-assassins. It must made “sense”.

For the record, I may be a pacifist, but I do believe that there are moments in history when one must take up arms against an enemy. I do not believe that the war in Iraq was one of those times.

For the record, I have no problem whatsoever with our servicemen and women; quite the opposite in fact. I have the greatest respect for anyone who is willing to lay down their life for their country, who is willing to make the greatest sacrifice of all. I have so much respect for these soldiers that I become morally enraged when I see people taking advantage of them: when a pack of chickenhawks throw our brightest and best, our youth, our armed services into the meatgrinder of war, taking literal hundreds of thousands of civilians with them, all for money. Not even for our continuing economic survival — just so the rich can get even richer, and so that we don’t actually have to do any belt-tightening — just so that we can continue to live our extravagant lifestyles, unfettered by things like, oh, I don’t know, humanity for our fellow man. This completely outrages me.

Also — does it bother anyone other than me to know that out of Bush’s entire warmongering cadre (Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rove, Libbey, Bush) the only one to ever actually see combat is Powell?