Many, many, many people disagreed with â??what we had at the timeâ??.

Seems like more every day know. Rewriting the past can be very effective on the campaign trail, but makes present day policy difficult. Just ask John Kerry.

Contrary to your belief, the war wasn't about WMD only. It was justified in enforcing UN sanctions and stopping the dictator from thumbing his nose at international authority. Or if you prefer, living up to the consequences of HIS past actions.

We have a system of checks and balances. You can't just discount the fact that Congress authorized this.

So O.K. George Bush 'wanted to'. Just for jollies. I can;t believe the anti war folks still peddle this laughable argument.

We acted on what we had at the time. Some things were wrong, but we were completely justified in waging this war.

Wrong, LJD. Not just no, but hell no.
Many, many, many people disagreed with "what we had at the time". Some didn't believe the info the administration was putting out about Iraq. Some believed it, but thought the administration's course of action and plan of execution were dead wrong. And that is by no means "completely justified".

We invaded Iraq for one reason and one reason only: because George Bush wanted to. He's The Decider. Congress, right or wrong, rolled over and gave Bush every single thing he wanted. This war, and everything about it, is totally Bush's.

Sure, on a simple level, if we were not in Iraq, this would not have happened. But how do we know the soldiers in question would have not perpetrated the same crime in Kosovo, Korea, or Camp Pendleton?

Pug, you don't get to make war and then change your mind. We acted on what we had at the time. Some things were wrong, but we were completely justified in waging this war. What is 'tired' is that one man could have 'lied' us into this situation. It's just naive.

It is disgusting and shameful, more so than the incident itself.

This whole argument is so tired. When you arrive at the conclusion, as you did, that it is more disgusting to oppose Bush than it is to slaughter civilians, you've really gone around the bend.

You make the point that Democrats voted to support Bush "over and over again". Of course they did and that makes him responsible for what happens in Iraq. He has conducted the war exactly as he has wanted.

Many of us who initially supported the war based on what Bush said have come to realize that it was a mistake. The things he said turned out not to be true. The conduct of the war has hardly been above reproach and, now, an incident like this involving our soldiers just saddens most of us. I feel bad for those killed and I feel bad for our soldiers and their families. And I'm just tired of this knee jerk defense of Bush even when no one is blaming him personally for this incident.

That�s what people have been saying since the �rice and flowers� theme became passe.

A theme I heard a lot more from anti-war types than from war supporters.

That's what people have been saying since the 'rice and flowers' theme became passe.

The trap Hitchens falls into however, is the same that cripples arguments from the left. If we had only done x, then y would happen. There is no possible way to prove which action would have produced which result. All of the hindsight policies from the left very well may have resulted in an even bigger bloodbath. We will never know.

You can criticize a past policy for its present day outcome, but to say with certainty that another path would have definitely produced another result is simply dishonest.

We need to deal with the present, and work towards the future. Save the past for the campaign trail.

I agree with you, but the problem is that the liberals who oppose Bush will use the massacre against him and as his fault and add it as, hopefully for them, an incident to get us to pull out.

These libs hate Bush, even though their own party voted to go to war and to support Bush over and over again.

It is disgusting and shameful, more so than the incident itself.

We agree on that. I'm pretty sure Hitchens would as well.

His point, I think, is that the nature of war is that these things will happen and that failure to take decisive risks against the enemy for fear of friendly casualties can prolong the war unnecessarily and paradoxically lead to the inevitable friendly causualties.

I also agree that there are trade-offs, judgement calls, and situations where decisions have to be made fast. Backseat driving decsions made under those circumstances can be unfair
From what we know so far, however, the situation where the Marines killed the civilians wasn't a trade-off, a judgement call, or a crisis requiring immediate decisions. They acted over a period of hours, quite deliberately. It appears to be a breach of military discipline, a failure to act according to their training.

It isn't a criticism of all soldiers or of the war itself to face up to the possibility that one group of soldiers way have done something very bad.