7th anniversary of Iraq War passes, little noticed

[Pennywise]

Well, the Iraq war showed me that I'll never serve in the U.S. military. Pretty much all of the nobility began to drain away from it when the U.S. government began to hire mercenaries from Blackwater (now called Xe) for more than they pay our soldiers with almost no accountability or discipline. They always say that they're defending my freedom in the military, but they're not as my freedom is always under assault over here in the U.S. There was no military assault on Wall Street so you're not defending my freedom against a bunch of people over in Iraq or Afghanistan. Terrorists just want to kill us, not take away our freedom. Our government takes away our freedom and will never give it back. The Patriot Act is still in effect.

The military is supposed to fight Al Qaeda and insurgents over in these countries, but terrorists will not meet you on a battlefield and are content to kill civilians in a city. Of course, we never really cared about those people's well being, just about our own. There was no running tally of Iraqi and Afghani civilian (non-insurgent, non-terrorist) deaths, just of our own dead and wounded. Not on any of the news networks. How can you give democracy to people you don't really care about?

But we did give them democracy and they've had a couple of elections...and we're still there. The death continues anyway. We are teaching these people how to fight like we do and we're still stuck there. How will that work? We never got cheaper oil from Iraq, but Halliburton and other companies made a fortune on no-bid contracts.

We stay there out of foolish pride, but there is no point anymore. No one is going to invade us and the terrorists can apparently just get into our country anyway since we keep catching them. Keep this war in your mind forever and don't forget it like we forgot Vietnam apparently because we wound up in another war that went nowhere.

[indianasmith]

I've heard a lot of liberal whining about the Patriot Act, but guys like Michael Moore, Mill Maher, Tim Robbins and others still got rich trashing the Bush administration.  Liberal Congressmen underimined our troops and provided lots of talking points to our enemies.  Protesters heckled the President everywhere he went for six years.

I would say that freedom of speech and association is alive and well in America, so spare me the whining about the big bad Patriot Act.

Frankly, this health care bill probably hurt American liberties worse than anything George W. did in his 8 years in office.

[Javakoala]

I've heard a lot of liberal whining about the Patriot Act, but guys like Michael Moore, Mill Maher, Tim Robbins and others still got rich trashing the Bush administration.  Liberal Congressmen underimined our troops and provided lots of talking points to our enemies.  Protesters heckled the President everywhere he went for six years.

I would say that freedom of speech and association is alive and well in America, so spare me the whining about the big bad Patriot Act.

Frankly, this health care bill probably hurt American liberties worse than anything George W. did in his 8 years in office.

Well, if I want to check out The Anarchist Cookbook at the library just to see what the fuss is about, I shouldn't be on a check list. But, hey, my fingerprints are on file, so...come get me for learning how to protect myself if worse comes to worse. Oh, and by the way, for those with children, keep in mind that your kids are being cataloged when you buy into the whole ID kit through your local police department in case your kids are snatched. For years, we had no base of fingerprints or identifying markers for the populace. Thanks to this program, your kids MAY be found easier IF they are snatched, but they can't do diddly without being tagged as being involved once you've done this. I'm in the system, so I could care less, but seeing future generations cataloged makes me wonder what is the ultimate reason for this. And I'm surprised, Lester, that you haven't touched on this, considering your rather liberal leanings. It is more of a nightmare than "nude" scanning.

But, hey, it's for the good of the children...right?

[Jim H]

I've heard a lot of liberal whining about the Patriot Act, but guys like Michael Moore, Mill Maher, Tim Robbins and others still got rich trashing the Bush administration.  Liberal Congressmen underimined our troops and provided lots of talking points to our enemies.  Protesters heckled the President everywhere he went for six years.

That's because the Patriot Act didn't do much to directly curtail rights (except for privacy) and freedoms of American citizens.  Instead it gave more power to the government to intrude and spy in on the personal and business lives of people in the USA. 

I'd think you'd be against it for this reason. 

Personally, I didn't like some of the provisions, and thought a few things it can do to non-citizens are quite objectionable (indefinite holdings on a whim, for example), but I do think the extent of how awful it is are exaggerated. 

I might add the Patriot Act did good too - things like reorganizing government entities to better share information on crime and terrorism.