A Mistake?

I keep hearing that 55% of Americans feel the war in Iraq was/is a mistake. First of all I take all such figures and polls with a very large grain of salt but it begs some questions.In what way was it a mistake? Most of Iraq is secure and peaceful. The reports that I have heard from the six returned soldiers that I personally know, paint a very different picture than the one we get on the daily news. They claim that most of the Iraqis, and the children in particular, are friendly and seem genuinely thankful to be out from under Saddam's thumb. The photo's and videos of the fall of his regime show a lot of people that seemed to be pretty pleased that he (Saddam) was gone.I also find it difficult to accept that the world would be better off today if Saddam were still in power. He definitely had WMD. We have found over 500 gas shells and removed a large amount of the yellow cake that Joe Wilson claimed wasn't there.I also keep hearing the war referred to as a "Failure" by the likes of Hillary Clinton (and most of the left), by what definition is this war a failure? We met the first objective in record time all the while being told we were in a quagmire by the main stream media. We have lost fewer than 3,000 troops in the 3 years we have been in Iraq and while every death is regrettable this is a remarkably small number. Certainly much smaller than the 10's to 100's of thousands the main stream media predicted. As to the number of enemy combatants killed, I frankly don't care. If they are taking up arms against our troops we should show the rest of the world what happens when you do and the civilian casualties have been far more the responsibility of the "insurgents" than they have our troops. The ridiculously overblown and hyped charges of torture and abuse at Abu Grahib and Gitmo are more a fantasy of the media than a reality. To call these events torture is similar to calling a spanking child abuse. I realize that some people consider spanking child abuse but they are largely fringe nuts that either have no children or whose children are spoiled and ill behaved, but I digress. The Iraqis have come out to vote, at great personal risk, 3 times now in numbers that we should strive for here. They are working toward a government that represents all of the people and have come a long way. Most of the dissent seems to be coming from outside agitators rather than a home grown movement. Any reasonably objective person must see that we have made significant progress in Iraq.And finally what do we stand to gain if we pull out before the job is done? All this will accomplish is to further embolden the terrorists with the proof that America has no backbone, a paper tiger as Osama called us after the Clintonian debacle in Mogadishu. We will be far less secure as a result in spite of the illogic of the left that would have you believe that by killing terrorists we are creating more terrorists. If that logic were true we'd all have been overrun by the Germans and Japanese in WWII. The further we pushed, the more that we killed, the nearer to victory we came, the more of our enemies to give up the fight rather than to continue to take up arms. This was particularly true of the Germans, but we did not face never ending hoards of Japanese at the end of the war either. In short our biggest mistake with Iraq may be in not having prosecuted this war far enough. Had we just bulldozed through Afghanistan to Iran and then to Iraq and Syria we just might have taught the bastards a lesson, that you don't fuck with us!I also hear with some frequency a claim that the administration is/has/continues to lie about this war but I've never gotten an answer, at least not a coherent one, when I've asked for examples. The WMD nonsense was never a lie as has been documented over and over. In referring back to statements made by President Bush and his advisors I find that things in Iraq have progressed pretty much along the lines that we were told it would. We were never told this was going to be quick or easy. In fact we have been told on any number of occasions that it was going to be long and difficult. We have been told all along that our troops would stand down as the Iraqis stood up and when this happens you can bet that the left is going to claim credit. Just as they continue to complain that President Bush has no plan, despite his explaining his plan many times, they continue to harp on the setbacks experienced as evidence that we can't win this war. Our military has never been defeated in war. Even in Vietnam the war was lost at home rather than on the battlefield. Only in the media and the fantasies of the left are we losing this war. Only those that refuse to accept that we are fighting an enemy that cannot be appeased and will break any and all agreements that they make can be opposed to this action. If you think that we can negotiate a long term peace with these people than you are dangerously naive. The objective of Islam is to subjugate the world and kill all non-believers. Nothing less than absolute success or complete failure is going to stop the violence. Every time they are beaten back they agree to a cease fire in order to allow themselves time to recover and rearm and then they are right back on the attack. This is not a recent trend but has been the case for literally thousands of years.If these polls are right and we wind up with a cut and run government I pray that the next event doesn't slaughter as many as we lost on 9/11, but I fear the toll will be much higher.