I'm disgusted

I'm disgusted with President Bush for not selling this war to the American people. He had a duty to not just prosecute the war but to rally the people to his side and answer the nattering nabobs of negativism as the criticism got stronger.

I'm disgusted with Tony Blair, whose support was conditional on UN approval, which led to the weapons of mass destruction meme. The fact is, Saddam violated--repeatedly--the terms of the peace of Iraq War I. We had every right to hold him to account for it and finish the job we started in 1991.

I'm disgusted with the UN and Kofi Annan, who are implicated up to their eyeballs in Saddam's Oil-for-Food scandal and whose sole justification for existence seems to be to prop up the status quo by turning a blind eye to the depredations of every strong man in the world as long as they're spitting in the eye of the US.

I'm disgusted with James Baker, head of the Iraq Study Group, who seems to think that the world is his personal chessboard and that no one is so loathsome that he can't be negotiated with. Baker and his ilk led Kurds and Shia in Iraq to stage uprisings following Gulf War I and then failed to support them. He overrode the advice of military leaders on the ground in order to tie things up and have a nice, telegenic 100-hour ground war. In short, Baker's one of the reasons we're in Iraq today.

I'm disgusted with the Democratic leadership, the presidents manques and the members of Congress, who supported the war before they were against it and then used each setback to score political points against the president. The entire nation is at war with Iraq--not just the Republican leadership--and as such it behooves you to support an American victory.

I'm disgusted with the media, who treated Abu Ghraib as the norm rather than the exception, who dwelt upon the 16 words and the weapons of mass destruction, who magnified every American casualty and downplayed or ignored every American success story.

I'm disgusted with the American people, who allow themselves to be swayed by idiotic comparisons such as the fact that we've been in Iraq for as long as we fought World War II. We lost more than 400,000 men in World War II, and fewer than 3,000 in the present war. But you would have those men and women die in vain. You would desert the Iraqi people the same way we deserted the South Vietnamese. You think that any loss of American prestige that would come about as a result of a pullout is a minor detail, as if American prestige is some kind of international keeping up with the Joneses.

American prestige is no small thing. Loss of American prestige as a result of Vietnam, the Iran hostage crisis, Somalia and the bombing of the US Embassy in Lebanon emboldened Osama bin Laden to bomb the World Trade Center. Loss of American prestige gives Kim Jong Il the idea that he can test his nukes with impunity. Loss of American prestige tells the mullahs in Iran that no one and nothing can stop them from acquiring nukes and arming Hezbollah and Hamas.

I'm disgusted with you all.