Kevan Smith writes:

It has occurred to me, as it should to you, that the intelligence
reports which John Kerry was receiving were not of the same quality
that George Bush was receiving. Indeed, many if not all of his
reports were filtered down through the present administration.
Therefore, how can you believe that the remarks of the two men
should be considered equally when one is the sitting president and
the other is not privy to all of the same information?

It's not like it matters. Both men are committed to continuing the
illegal occupation of Iraq, heaping more misery on a country which
should by rights be getting reparations payments instead. Bush
shouldn't be President; he should be in the dock for war
crimes. This Iraq War is a great national shame.

A recent political cartoon made that clear showing a burned out auto
wreck, labeled Iraq, with a US soldier giving the keys to an Iraqi
saying "OK, you can drive now." The USA cannot easily extricate
itself from the debacle and there are no easy solutions to the matter
of solving the enormous problems the willful destruction of that
nation has caused.

Well known military documents state that policing a nation after it
capitulates in battle is a task nearly as great as winning the battle.
Under commanders who knew what lay before them our forces sat idly by
as looting and destruction, as great as that caused by our weapons,
went on for weeks, pretending that this was a great surprise. This
occurred under Donald Rumsfeld who, as I, learned about this the role
of military policing and combat in officer's training and subsequent
service:

http://www.defenselink.mil/bios/rumsfeld.html

Iraqis did not come running out to welcome their liberators as our
nation was told would occur. Those who predicted the actual outcome
were put down as enemy sympathizers and the like... the whole mess is
such a sordid story as we lost the support of all the nations who came
to our cause after 9/11... freedom fries and the like.

Fortunately the American people still have friends in the world even
though our administration is universally hated. However we could
change that too in the upcoming election.

Jobst Brandt