keyword...SOME...not MOST. I'm sorry...I just have a hard time with you saying that Bush caused all the chaos on the world. Throughout history, the US has been a powerful force to be dealt with. Nobody is perfect. Mistakes will be made in EVERY administration. But for you to sit there and insist that relations have only been on edge between the US and the middle east is just plain blind and ignorant. The only reason there is tension over there because of Bush is that he actually took the initiative to do something about what was and continues to go on there. He didn't get alot of support from other countries, but something needed to happen and he along with congress made that decision to go. Have you ever stopped to wonder if we would have gone to Iraq without a 9/11? Do you think he would have just loaded up and gone to war? Keep in mind that even the democrats in congress approved his decision to go to Iraq. Remember the 80's? US hostage crisis? I don't think Bush caused that. Bill Clinton was in office when the USS Cole was attacked. Again...NOT Bush's fault. See? But the really important part of it all is that to be a super power, you have to do powerful things and you have to maintain a powerful image. We're not the ones who flew planes into buildings and crashed into fields. You can't let something like that go unanswered. However, I think that if something like that were to happen today, we would not react like a super power. We would look weak and defeated. God help us when that day comes. And I'm afraid it will.
For the first time in my adult life, I am truly scared for future of our country.
I don't think you should have gone into Iraq at all, and I think a US presence in the Gulf makes things worse, not better. If you guys weren't in the ME, I doubt 9-11 would have even happened. But we will never know.
I've always felt you did what you did in Iraq, not because they were any threat, it was a payback for 9-11 (even though Iraq had nothing to do with it). It was a big "don't fuck with us' and that's where you lose people. Because we're not sitting here going "go USA, it's payback time for 9-11", we're going "WTF? Why are you going after Iraq". IOW, if you chose your enemies and they were deserving of getting their butts kicked, you would get a tonne of support. Going after the wrong people, is going after the wrong people. Now, you may be able to pull the wool over some gun-loving Christian right-winger with a 6th grade education, but those of us who are more worldly in our approach, saw it for what it was - having a go at the wrong person for something they didn't do. Nothing more than school yard bullying, and nobody likes a bully.