> > The bickering we get at home now ("You started
> > it."  "Get our troops home!"  "Etc!") isn't the best morale booster.

> It may not be the best morale booster, or the most useful tool in
> prosecuting the "peace" or whatever one might call the domestication and
> pacification of Iraq.

> But it is an inevitable price of OUR domestic structure, and OUR means and
> mechanisms of controlling and managing OUR government.  It is my personal
> viewpoint that, even if sub-optimal in the specific case of Iraq, it is
> necessary and positively required that domestic disent be hard, and
> discussed.

How many unnecessary body bags in a acceptable 'sub-optimal'?

Your personal view point would mean a lot more if you or yours were the
ones paying the inevitable price. Please consider giving those paying the
price
a break. Please consider further making the sacrifice of holding your
dissent until after the war is won. If not for Bush or the country,
for the payers' sake.

> > We have to present a unified front on this one.
>
> So, I disagree.

So the people we sent *don't* deserve everything?
They don't deserve the security of a united home front?

> But I cannot stand by and say that I think the "war" was just or
justified,
> nor can I say that the "peace" is being managed in an appropriate manner,
> and if it damages the prospects of our best in Iraq to say so, I hope they
> will understand it.

This is like not being able to say "I love my wife" without also saying,
"But I
hate my mother-in-law". Always having to point out "I hate my mother-in-law"
detracts from the statement, "I love my wife". It also ignores the basic
connection
between wife and mother-in-law that no amount of parsing will change.

The fine point of difference you are trying to make is lost.

Our troops deserve everything except dissenters exercising a little self
control in venting their hatred for as long as it takes to bring the war to
an end? Dissenters could cowboy-up and give a little, bite their tongue
and support the war for the sake of those in the field. Dissenters have
the right to speak.  They also have the right to remain silent. If they
choose to speak, knowing but not caring that it will do harm, that
is their choice.

A choice provided to them by the very people *unnecessarily* bleeding
because of that choice.

Barbarrossa