🚀 go-pugleaf

Coming Home - Disillusioned
      by Christopher H. Sheppard

      Three years ago, I was a Marine Corps captain on the Iraqi/Kuwaiti
border, participating in the invasion of Iraq. Awestruck, I heard our
howitzers thunder and watched artillery rockets rise into the night sky and
streak toward Iraq - their light bathing the desert moonscape like giant arc
welders.

      As I watched the Iraq war begin, I completely trusted the Bush
administration. I thought we were going to prove all of the left-wing
antiwar protesters and dissenters wrong. I thought we were going to make
America safer. Regrettably, I acknowledge that it was I who was wrong.

      I believed the Bush administration when it said Iraq had weapons of
mass destruction. I believed its assertion that Iraq was trying to buy
yellowcake uranium from Africa and refine it into weapons-grade uranium for
a nuclear bomb. I believed its claim Iraq had vast quantities of biological
and chemical agents. After years of thorough inspections, all of these
claims have been disproved.

      I believed the administration when it claimed there was overwhelming
evidence Iraq was in cahoots with al-Qaida. In January 2004, then-Secretary
of State Colin Powell admitted that there was no concrete evidence linking
Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida.

      I believed the administration when it grandly proclaimed we were going
to bring a stable, Western-style liberal democracy to Iraq, complete with
religious tolerance and the rule of law. We never had enough troops in Iraq
to restore civil order and the rule of law. The Iraqi elections have
produced a ruling majority of Shiite fundamentalists and marginalized the
seething Sunni minority. Iraq dangerously teeters on the brink of civil war.
We have emboldened Iran and destabilized the entire Middle East.

      I believed the administration when it claimed the war could be done
quickly and cheaply. It said the war would cost only between $50 billion and
$60 billion. It said that Iraqi oil revenue would fund the country's
reconstruction. I believed President Bush when he landed on the USS Lincoln
and said "major combat operations have ended."

      The war has cost the American taxpayers $250 billion and counting. The
vast majority - 94 percent - of the more than 2,300 United States service
members killed in Iraq have occurred since Bush's "Top Gun" proclamation.
The cost in men and materiel has been far beyond what we were led to
believe.

      I volunteered to go back to Iraq for the fall and winter of 2004-2005.
I went back out of frustration and guilt; frustration from watching Iraq
unravel on the news and guilt that I wasn't there trying to stop it. Many
fine Marines from my reserve battalion felt the same and volunteered to go
back. I buried my mounting suspicions and mustered enough trust and faith in
my civilian leadership to go back.

      I returned disillusioned by what I saw. I participated in the second
battle of Fallujah in November 2004. We crushed the insurgents in the city,
but we only ended up scattering them throughout the province. The dumb ones
stayed and died. The smart ones left town before the battle, to garner more
recruits and fight another day. We were simply the little Dutch boy with our
finger in the dike. In retrospect, we never had enough troops to firmly
control the region; we had just enough to maintain a tenuous equilibrium.

      I now know I wrongfully placed my faith and trust in a presidential
administration hopelessly mired in incompetence, hubris and a lack of
accountability. It planned a war based on false intelligence and unrealistic
assumptions. It has strategically surrendered the condition of victory in
Iraq to people who do not share our vision, values or interests. The Bush
administration has proven successful at only one thing in Iraq - painting us
into a corner with no feasible exit.

      I will never trust any of them again.

      Christopher H. Sheppard is a former Marine captain who served two
tours of duty in Iraq as a combat engineer. He currently is finishing his
master's degree in mass communication and lives in Marysville.

      � 2006 The Seattle Times Company

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Impeach Bush and his lousey administration of screwed up imbeciles.