I agree that the troops received positive response at first, and the media did report it, but Rumsfeld, et al believed that there would be no resistance, or a minimal six-months insurgency. He was wrong and the mistake has cost the lives of American soldiers, my countrymen whom I repsect and mourn.

I agree that many in the armed services support the mission. I disagree with their position, but I do not say they hate America, which is what Ms. Bruce says about the left.

I was over there – not on the ground, but on a ship in the Gulf – from April through September 2003, and I was proud to be there. I was proud to be a member of the U.S. Navy for 20 years. I almost gave it up, though, when Clinton was abusing and mis-using the military and I spent 6 months in Bosnia on a mission to stop a bunch of people who ALL were involved in the attempted “ethnic cleansing” of each other, and whose country had far less to do with U.S. national interests than Iraq has.

How are you so sure this is the right thing, especially at this point?

“I think this will be a bombing campaign only, and will take place before this year’s elections. Why? So no matter how hawkish someone like Hillary likes to portray herself, it will be an act that will once again expose the Left for what it really is–defeatist cowards who no longer have the fortitude to do what is right for this nation.”

So it’s the “right” thing to attack Iran before the elections so that Hillary will be seen as a coward? Yuo’re suggesting the timing of a military attack should be based on political decisions rather than sound tacitics?

[Ms. Bruce usually doesn't need to spoon-feed her readers with the obvious, but you're a newbie and a lefty, so she's updated her post with the Statement of the Obvious for those of you who are stuck on the rhetorical short bus.--ed].

“Ultimately, they have not been and never will root for the USA to win. Ultimately it’s because they truly relate to the enemy within their victimhood and self-loathing which translates to hate for this nation.”

This is simply your attempt to villify those who hold different views. The “Liberals hate America” speech. Only paranoids buy this argument, and not even all of them. And I have no idea what “the enemy within their victimhood and self-loathing” means, except that you are trying to build a “liberals=terrorists” argument out of whole cloth.

“We saw what this moral vapidity and general cowardice of the Left did to our nation during Vietnam.”

And the new theme, since Iraq is heading toward disaster, is to blame the liberals, not Rumsfeld’s poor strategies or a general misunderstanding of the situation. It wasn’t liberals who thought we would be greeted as liberators. It wasn’t liberals who went to war without an exit strategy. But in your mind, it will be the left’s fault because they did not believe in the war and spoke out–in ultimately patriotic ways–about poor policy, poor decisions and poor leadership.