Like most Americans, your call for change is rather belated and limp. You and your countrymen and women could have stopped this terror presidency but you didn't. You sat silently by, for the most part for eight years and let this happen. Americans were the enablers. In 2004, Mr. Bush won a convincing victory. The 2006 mid term elecetion hardly constituted a resounding denunciation of the Bush doctrine on terror, torture and war. There were few voices calling for impeachment. And those that did call for impeachment were marginalized. Indeed, your Democratic Majority House Leader, Ms. Pelosi, famoulsy and promptly announced that impeachment was "off the table". It apparently still is. Why? The American public, and its largely compliant media and its gutless political leadership, permit it. You all share the shame and the guilt.

I don't know which Americans you're talking about. I don't feel any shame or guilt. Thanks for your concern, though.

Agitate,

See what happens when you don't vote?

Your country is a rogue state that abducts and tortures untold numbers of people in contravention of international law. Your country has establsihed gulags where people are secretly sent to be tortured. Your country invaded another country, resulting in the deaths of close to 500,000 Iraqi civilians, including thousands of children and maimed untold others. Your country has forced millions of Iraqis to flee their homeland. Your country lied to the world about WMD at a security council meeting. Your country did all this. And, regrettably, like too many Americans and your so-called leadership, your hubris blinds you the shame and guilt you should feel. I'm not concerned about the sorry state of the United States. But if I were a citizen of your country I would be. It's unfortunate and mightily intsructive that you aren't.

FordTruck5Speed,

Your thinking is reflective of the vehicle you apparently drive:a piece of junk.

And this thread is helpful because...?

Agitate, are you really Michael Moore? Come on, take the mask off. And put the damn doughnut down, for crying out loud.

FordTruck5Speed:

Agitate, are you really Michael Moore? Come on, take the mask off. And put the damn doughnut down, for crying out loud.

Maybe if you put down the koolade he'll put down the donut

Despite the rather ham-handed and insulting way it was put, agitate does have one point: in 2004 we knew that the Bush administration was abusing its power, and in 2004 he won re-election by winning both the popular and the electoral vote.

There's no escaping that.

I find it interesting that my post would be described as "ham-handed" and "insulting." The posts are a recitation of unassailable facts. Your country invaded a nation, destroyed it and its people. Your country, as I wrote, created secret gulags where people are disptached like luggage to be tortured and maimed. Your country desecrates the rule of law - domestic and international - by engineering and an abduction and torture racket euphemistically called "extraordinary renditions." Your country was responsible for the obscenity of Abu Garhrib. And I'm insluting and ham-handed. Please. As I wrote, hubris and blindess are a toxic and dangerous cocktail that many Americans are adept at employing to avoid responsibility for the grievous harm your nation has caused. Like the hayseed in the truck, keep drinking your swill to dull your shame and guilt.

1. You use the term "your country" many times in your posts. What country is yours?

2. The USA and its current president will forever in history have to carry the stain of the invasion of Iraq, much as we have to carry the unerasable stain of our African_American citizen's fore-bearers.

3. You use words like "gulags." Do you think the US is sawing off the heads of live (or dead) detainees at those rendition sites? Or pulling their tongues out of their mouths with pliers, as did Saddam's "elite" Fedaheen Corps to dissidents?

4. The US had never sustained an attack like 9/11 on its land, unlike most other countries of the world. The response to such an attack had to be ferocious. The Bush Administration proved incapable of a ferocious counter-attack that was also efficacious.

5. Irrespective of who is elected as the next president, the US will continue to employ all its resources to crush the Islamic radical movement that threatens not only us, but all societies that are trying to escape our brutal pasts.

6. Mistakes will be made; the Iraq invasion is, hopefully, the most egregious one the US will ever have to answer for.

7. Capitulation to Islam would set back the world 1000 years...is that an outcome you want to see?

My Blog: proteanPerspectives.blogspot.c­om

Interesting phrase..."mistakes will be made." You make it sound as if the deaths of 500,000 Iraqis and the forced migration of millions of others is akin to an error on a test. As I said, your hubris is breathtaking in its scope. The litany of lame and predictable rationalizations you employ in your post simply confirms the blindness I wrote about that characterizes much of America. As for my country, suffice it to say, I am not an American and I don't live in America. So, you can safely avoid the admonition that I can leave America if I don't like it.

I have one question that's never once been aswered by the left or the "blame Bush/blame America" crowd. How many UN "resolutions" should be passed before action is taken? We tried what, 16? How many do we put through...20, 40, 100...what's the cut-off? Did everyone forget that the "world community" agreed (including Queen Hillary) that Saddam Hussein was a threat, not just to his own people (think rape rooms, torture chambers etc) but to the rest of the world. Ag, I'm glad you're keeping the stats over there. So, by reading your post, it sounds like the US military landed in Iraq and said, "OK, let's pull people out of bed and kill them." I don't care how surgical your strike is. I don't care how pin-point accurate your smart bombs are or how well trained your men are. The tragic reality is that someone innocent will die. I hate war as much as anyone, but as many of our brave men and women serving in Iraq have said publicly, turning Iraq over to the terrorists now is about the worst thing we could do.

It's ham-handed and insulting because of the tone. It's entirely possible to say what you're getting at without taking a tone of hysterical accusation.

For example, note the tone of my posts. I will concede your major points:

1.) We invaded Iraq with a poor plan and disastrous consequences.

2.) We shipped people to secret locations in Eastern Europe to be tortued, and used Guantanamo Bay as a sort of gulag.

3.) We used "extroadinary rendition". I put it in quotes only because you could call it anything -- kidnapping, abduction and torture, borrowing someone for an indefinite period of time -- and the act would be just as offensive.

4.) Abu Graib, 'nuff said.

What you need to understand is this: the United States is not a democracy. We do not vote on everything we do. We are a republic -- we elect leaders to act as agents on our behalf. The American electorate is, on a macro scale, responsible for what has happened, but that's on a very macro scale. The fault for Abu Graib lies in the hands of a few people acting on their own and when it was found out -- note the public outrage in America over it -- it was swiftly stopped. Likewise, extraordinary renditions were done on behalf of American, not with all American's consent.

Does this exonerate us? Not entirely. The fact remains that the president was re-elected even after we knew of some of this. But don't confuse individual decisions (i.e., by the president, or a general, or a CIA beaurocrat) with collective decisions.

The reason your comments are ham-handed and insulting is because you paint everyone with the same brush, regardless of who they voted for. The real world isn't quite so black and white.

The world isn't so "black and white". Thank you for the piercing logic. Ah, I see, you can consider the shades and complexities of life from the comfort of your sedate American home. It must be a relief to do that. And, I would say, relatively easy.Ah, as for those 500,000 Iraqis that have been killed and maimed and the millions of others who have been forced from their homelands as a consequence of America's "poor planning." Now, I suspect that they too should be thankful for, and understanding of, the complexities of life. I'm sorry. You and your fellow Americans long ago forfeited the right to lecture anyone about the complexities of life. Try this on for complex. Go to Baghdad. Bid you children goodbye in the mroning as the head off to school, presuming there is a school. And then spend the rest of the day praying for their return. Go to Bagdhad and bury your relatives that have been killed by your "smart bombs. Go to Iraq and pick up what are left of your belongings and flee to Syria, Egypt and Jordan and try to resume the remainders of your life. Try that, my dear, before you lecture the rest of us about "black and white." But you won't will you? You rank hypocrite. Oh, yes, that is meant to be insulting because the rest of the world has earned the right to give your country its collective middle finger.