While some can celebrate that 4000 American soldiers have died as a veteran and an American I lament the loss of even one soldier's life.

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Soldiers swear to protect and defend the Constitution with their lives.

Politicians swear to protect and defend the Constitution with someone else's life.

Here you have to ask yourself "have they died for their country"?
The problem is, you see, they haven't, even though they may have thought they would if they were to die.

It is no argument that because the oil prices are rising then US must not have gone to Iraq for oil. That was exactly the purpose.

Just watch the US documentary "No End In Sight" and you'll here testimonies of people who were there, even US marines, about what really went on. It happens that, despite the urges of the local administration to protect them, all the historical sites in Baghdad were looted. THE ONLY facilities actually protected by US soldiers was the oil reservoir and drills.

It's time to wake up from this dream of "US, pride of the world." There is nothing to be proud of in this country. The living standards are still good, but the economy is failing, due in part to the armed conflicts that the Bush administration hindered. Most European countries are living better then the US is right now. The Chinese economy is out-producing the US. Japan is ahead in Technology. The medical system we have is the most expensive in the world, while being on the 33-rd place in quality. The population is largely poorly educated or uneducated.

Off course, US is not the worst, and it is one of the countries of "Global North", but it's definitely not the best, and we have little to be proud of. US didn't WIN world war II, the Allies did, which included USSR, and they had a 4-million army en-route to Berlin. We wouldn't even have made a difference if we stuck to the "isolationist" policy. As in WWI, US didn't participate until the very end...

We just came in there because we were so afraid of the "Reds" that we wanted to halt their "advance." USSR was no better, losing 1 million soldiers in Germany trying to out-race us.

Vietnam was a rat hole that we shouldn't even have gone into... So is Afghanistan and Iraq. Just a waste of US lives and a slight tab on the oil prices. Not that the oil magnates would get any less greedy, so the oil prices do rise anyway.