Is anyone else not comfortable with Americas new designation as...

[NNN0LHI]

..."invaders" and "occupiers"? I am not saying it is not an apt description. I'm just saying this doesn't set well with me for some reason. Has anyone else given it much thought?

Don

[lizerdbits]

1. Yes

Definately has a 'colonialism' aura, not something I'd like this country to have.

[Jacobin]

2. Yeah. I think it sucks

I'm not fond of living in a fascist regime bent on warmongering to conquer the world and steal oil and do "holy wars."

In fact, it makes me sick to my stomach.

The blowback is gonna be a bitch. Its short sighted, stupid, self-defeating, idiotic, expensive, and amoral.

[DuctapeFatwa]

3. The victims of the regime are not comfortable either

Many of the children Americans paid to maim don't have access to painkillers.

[Jacobin]

4. Very good point

War is a grisly business and should be avoided unless it is an absolute last resort for self defense.

I'm still in shock that this country is engaged in this idiocy. After all, most people in America today were alive when Vietnam was going on.

Insanity. Total and absolute insanity.

[Clete]

5. I'm very concerned about it especially for all the

Americans that don't deserve these labels hung on them.

[Philostopher]

6. I didn't like it in October of last year.

When I stood on a cold streetcorner on a Saturday afternoon, holding a 'Regime Change Begins At Home' sign, with the rest of the protestors. But I knew we were heading for invasion. The fatalist in me didn't really have any hope of protests making a damned bit of difference when $$ drove the men in charge of my country, but I guess I felt like I had to do something.

I didn't like it. I knew when the SCOTUS installed the Boy King in the White House that there were going to be many things happen that I wouldn't like -- though I didn't worry specifically about an illegal invasion of Iraq based on bogus information, I was pretty sure the maladministration would find (or fabricate out of thin air and gossamer veils, for all it mattered) a way to wangle an excuse to adventure after the oil reserves in the Middle East. Not much has changed -- and I still don't like it.

I don't like the fact that the continuing hemmorhage of blood and money over this wasn't necessary. I don't like the fact that it's clear now (which I only suspected at the time) that most of the reasons they gave for invading Iraq were overblown or outright bullshit.

I cling to the faint hope that the elections in 2004 won't be rigged like the ones in 2000 (some have put forth the convincing argument that many were rigged in '02, as well, which wouldn't surprise me). And that someone with some sense will be able to grasp the reins of the country again. Though I have chosen a horse to buy grain for, in the race among the Dem candidates, there are only a couple I would have a problem supporting when it came down to the general election -- and I'd probably vote for them, anyway.

I guess it was coming of age in the Reagan era that warped me -- I've had the hope beat out of me, over the years. But I still keep at it, because stranger things have happened than that things would improve. I'd feel like a real shit if I wasn't part of trying to make that happen, even as little as I believe it matters. Stubbornness and hope may have different definitions in the dictionary, but dammit, the result (if there is one) is the same!

[LiberalLibra]

7. I don't like it at all but sometimes the truth hurts and in this case.....

....it hurts and hurts some more.

[Cheesehead]

8. I agree fully.

The whole concept of a conquest and domination scenerio is not what our role in the world should be and is abhorent to me. There can be no justification for the carnage on both sides, the perversion of justice, and the squandering of resources.

[MuseRider]

9. God yes

it just sickens me to think of the little good will we had and have now lost. I thought it was bad traveling during the Reagan years, this will be infinitely worse. I fear for us in the long term but I fear more for those in other countries in the short term. We have become despised and we deserve it. Don't like it at all.

[Doctor_J]

10. No

since it's exactly what we are. We let this ignorant, drunken loser and his puppeteers move into the WH and position our nation as exactly that.

The upside is that IF RoveCo can be contained for another 15 months, then the very minute that Wesley Clark is elected president, the healing will begin within the country and throughout the world, and it will be a long time before we have to worry about another wingnut winning a national election.

[Cocoa]

11. it's not right

and the ones that like it the least are the ones that are actually there.

I've heard quotes from the troops saying "they don't want us here."

It's not what they signed up for.