Too bad you're against us. You confirmed my point of view...
Be careful with sloppy pronouns. "Us," for example. It's a good way to give condense an argumentum ad populam into a single word, but nobody, including you, actually knows who're "us."
You probably mean "America," but of course you don't mean America really, you mean the
government. And you don't really mean the government, you mean the
Bush administration. You identify with them, and identify them with the country as a whole, and so you say "us."
The fact is you ain't one of "them" either: you believe in lofty goals like liberating the Iraqis, and the administration doesn't. I don't pretend to know what George Bush's motivations for invading Iraq were, but he never gave a damn about "liberating" anyone. He might have believed the bad intel on WMDs, or he might not--I don't know. But at this point his every thought and action is about his own self-interest, now and in the future. The "surge" is a way to saddle the
next President with the consequences of his failed policies; as long as withdrawal doesn't happen on his watch, he can blame everything on the next guy. And funneling billions to cronies at Halliburton, Kellogg and Root, etc, is good for his future, since they'll probably repay him after the fact with a pension disguised as "consulting."
Then again, it's possible he believes all the grand things he claims, which you clearly do believe. If so, he's a moron--and I don't believe he's a moron. You don't get to be President by being a moron. You get to be President by being dishonest. (Which is why, to bring it back on topic, RP doesn't really stand a chance.)
--Len.