Good Points

This from a brother of a fallen Marine who died fighting W, Rove and Co's occupation of Iraq:

One was from the brother of a fallen Marine, who said he did not want Mr. Bush to say the war should continue in order to keep faith with the men and women who have died fighting it. "We do not need more justifications for the war. We need an effective strategy to win it," he wrote

Also, connecting Iraq and the Nine Eleven disaster is not only irresponsible, but a reprehesible ploy to move people politically.

Incidentially, how many more terrorists are in Iraq now that we are there?

I have two 2:24 PM Post Scripts:

I found the Libertarian Party position surfing blogexplosion. The have an exit plan and put it plainly:

The Libertarian Party strongly disagrees with President Bush’s unclear mission: We are not “hunting down the terrorists.” We are enabling them and providing Iraqi insurgents with a common enemy. And we are not advancing freedom. Instead we are advancing chaos in the Middle East.

And the Cranky Liberal, being Cranky, puts it more forcefully:

What I heard was a litany of things that are improving in Iraq. Schools and housing are being rebuilt. Electricity is almost back to pre-war levels. We heard about how the Iraqi’s are drafting their constitution, how we are training their security forces, and how other nations are starting to trickle aid into Iraq to help the Iraqi people.

These are good things.

One day they may be the beginnings of a free and democratic Iraq. Let us pray that happens. But a free Iraq is not the question. We gave our grudging OK to war not to free Iraqi children, but to protect our own. The issue three years ago, three months ago, and three minutes ago is whether or not invading Iraq was justified. Would an overtly offensive war on our part make the Middle East, America and the world a safer place to live in.

We know now the answer is no. Invading Iraq has not made America safer. Indeed we have all but ensured that we will face another terrorist attack in our country. We have turned Iraq into the bootcamp for modern guerrilla warfare. Already thousands of our enemy have slipped across the border to learn how to fight us. Enemies that were not in Iraq before we invaded...

...Beyond stupidity, beyond unrealistic spin, was a more fundamental betrayal in the Presidents speech - the continued linking of 9/11 to the Iraqi war. Once again this Administration is hell bent on blurring the line between the outrageous attack on America and our unjustified war in Iraq. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. There was no link no connection, no threat. There is now. The terrorists are threatening Iraqi civilians now because WE brought them there. It is the consequence of our actions that Iraq is fertile ground for terror, not the other way around. Continuing to distort the truth isn’t just disrespectful, it’s disgusting.

Even more disgusting than his blatant begging for young people to join the military as their patriotic duty.