So what is worth "tearing apart families"?

Not many things. Certainly not this exercise in idiocy we call the Liberation of Iraq. I didn't really think I needed to know something that was worth X in order to realize that something else wasn't worth X.

So what's your definition of "tearing apart families"? Leaving for two weeks? Two months? A year? Or just dying in another country?

Leaving your family and career for a year to go to a warzone. Where your family will worry every day, with every bit bit of news, that you are dead.

I think in the context of my comment, my intentions are readily discernable. Is there something else it would mean in this context?

Are those reservists that have completed the service they signed up for? I'm not talking about enlisted men and women. I'm talking about people that took the easy money offered by the National Guard to pay for college. People who had every reason to believe they'd be at risk of helping a community recover from a natural disaster, or shooting a few unruly student protesters. My neighbor with two young kids comes to mind.

And even if I allow enlisted persons to be included, it's not worth their lives to accomplish what we have in Iraq.

Then in your opinion, we should pull back every single US soldier out of any foreign country since there is always a possibility that they might die "in some foreign land"?

Didn't the US try that before as a foreign policy?

Are you stupid? I'm astounded by the conclusions you are able to draw from thin air. Maybe you are a savant...

I spoke of a single mission. One that I've oppossed from the start. And specifically, the use of Reservists and National Guardsmen to fight in this mistake of an occupation. My comments have a very well defined context, which you have yet to acknowledge or stay within.

You know you were wrong about Iraq, and that people like myself and Derek have been proven right. And insteadof acknowledge your error, you appeal to the same tired slippery slope arguments against a straw man's position.

Personal insults...how quaint. I never for once thought of you as stupid, just as someone I could debate with honestly. I guess that's not the case. Instead, it looks like you are the epitome of why I left the Democratic party. If you want to sit there and think you are smarter than the rest of the world, go for it. I used to think that for a long time...then I finally grew up. Maybe you should too?

You see every setback in the war in Iraq as a validation to your opinion, and every step forward as an aberration. Pull you head out of your ass Dan and see the whole damn picture. Compare what happened in WW1 and WW2 and see what we've done today. We are light years ahead of where we were in April, 2003 and are almost ready to create another democracy in a place that twenty years ago we would have never thought possible. Democracy isn't pretty, and it doesn't form spontaneously. I love the fact that you would deny the people of Iraq the same abilities to live their lives the way you want because "the cost is too high for you".

If you want to start on the "road of mistakes" or the "quagmire" we are in, go for it. Just don't be surprised if you are talking to yourself...

I wasn't insulting you. I was asking a legitimate question given the conlusions you had drawn from what was written. Your last question did not logically follow from my statements. But then logic is something I've learned not to associate with you. :P

I see our failure to acheive goals (at last inferred goals, since they never stated what the goals were definatively) as the key indicater that this mission is largely fruitless, and therefore not worth having done.

WMD: They don't seem to have existed, and certainly were not in a state sufficient to present a threat to us.

Fighting Terrorists: We've destablized a nation, and made it easier for terrorist to operate within it. We've given the entire population of Arabia dozens of reasons to hate us, and only re-enforced thier pre-conceived notions of us, thus leading to more fertile recruiting ground. Consider the opportunity costs, and it's unfathomable why this war was even started. It did not help our side in the War on Terror. It helped the terrorists.

Liberating Iraq: Yeah, it's gonna be liberated all right. Mulahs will be running things. We may as well have cloned Iran. Only an Iran on the precipice of Civil War.

Combine that with the secondary results of the loss of good faith with the rest of the world, the tarnishing of our image as moral leader, the weaking of our military position/flexibility, and the crimes committed in its name, and I don't really understand how you could say this was anything BUT a disaster.

I know this is an old discussion, but it shouldn't be allowed to stand without the truth added in. Truth#1: there were WMD. Most were buried in the wasted months before the war waiting for the UN. Most have not been found, but some are actually being used against our troops. Luckily the terrorist don't know how to properly use them, so they have been ineffective.
Truth#2: The Super Anti-Bush crowd, rather than having an intelligent protest, appear to be against not only the President, but the entire USA. Their overzealous rhetoric helps to fuel the terrorist's hatred for America. Truth #3: Operation Iraqi Freedom needed to be fought for several reasons: 1) The UN being a weak and useless organization had not done anything to stop Iraq. 2) The US after 9/11 on its terrorist cleanising mission needed a land base to launch attacks against two terrorist nations Iran and Syria.
Truth #4: We would have had a large coalition similar to that of the father had it not been for one thing and that was dirty money. Iraq, despite UN sanctions, was selling oil and the profits were going to memebers of the UN, France, Germany, and Russia.
Truth #5: Despite what some may say, no US troops were ever forced to stay in Iraq past their contract end date. All military members signup for 8 year contracts usually three to four years active and the rest can be done inactive, reserve, or national guard.