Chuck Sigars on the war in Iraq

Chuck who?
Sigars. I became aware of him a long time ago and lost track because there are too many good places to keep track of them all. He was a link from Gordon Atkinson (Real Live Preacher) and I went back to look at his blog while drilling around in some old archives looking for something else. Isn't that how it is? You run into someone you haven't seen for an eternity and all at once you wish you had never lost track...

Anyway, here is his take on the war in Iraq. (I'm straining not to use words like debacle, fiaso, mess, etc.).

For the record, I will state my feelings about the current war in Iraq, starting from March 2003 and continuing through today.
**Dubious but unsure
**Hopeful
**Less hopeful
**Horrified
This is bad on so many levels. We know so much more than we did three and a half years ago, and none of it is good. We know that the current administration ignored
intelligence reports about the threat from Al-Qaeda, probably because it came from the prior administration. We know that immediately following 9/11, an invasion of Iraq was put on the front burner. We know that in the months preceding the war, President Bush said that an invasion of Iraq was "a last resort," and we know he meant nothing of the kind.

The post is a litany of what we know now that we didn't know at the start. It is a list of mistakes and misinformation listed in what I would call the most charitable terms, but with deception and coverups piling up in bloody drifts all along the way. There is a footnote to a personal tragedy as well, with the post ending thus:

...What have we done?

Because, in a republic, we're responsible. We are, too. We don't have to think about it, or even participate or vote or write letters, but we still are. And these kids, most of them between 18 and 22, will be our legacy. We have sent them to the desert. We have lied to them about why they went. We have cut their benefits, denied them body armor, refused reinforcements. Sins of commission or omission are still sins.

Read the post. Tell me I'm all wrong about this. I'm asking here.

As he said, go read it. Read the comments as well. A couple of them make an effort to tell him how wrong he is, but I'm afraid I find them unpersuasive. When I think about what we have done and continue to do in Iraq it makes me feel sad and helpless.