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"I am the same man and do not alter, it is you who change, since in fact you took my advice while unhurt, and waited for misfortune to repent of it . . . But you must not be seduced by citizens like these nor be angry with me -- who, if I voted for war, only did as you did yourselves." -- Pericles's funeral oration, "The Peloponnesian War" by Thucydides Wars have never been easy to defend. Even in "heroic" cultures, men and women applauded wars then grew weary of them. This Iraq war, too, was once a popular...

The Anniversary: Five years after the start of the war in Iraq, it's become common wisdom — among mainstream media and Beltway pundits, anyway — that it's all been a failure. They couldn't be more wrong.The U.S. war in Iraq — and by extension, President Bush — started coming under withering criticism not too long after it started in March 2003. Quickly forgotten were these salient quotes, made just the year before: "We have known for many years that Saddam Hussein is seeking and developing weapons of mass destruction." — Sen. Ted Kennedy, on Sept. 27, 2002. "It is clear...

President Bush spoke this morning at the Pentagon today on the fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq war, that liberated Iraq from it’s ruthless dictator and evil regime Later on, he met in the Oval Office with Georgia's President Mikhail SaakashviliEnoy your visit to Sanity Island

FALLUJAH, Iraq (March 19, 2008) -- March 20, 2003, televisions glowed in living rooms across America. Families glued to the screens, watching Coalition troops brave austere desert conditions and cross the threshold, invading the hostile nation of Iraq. Advances in the media’s technology gave unprecedented coverage of troops, humvees, and armored vehicles rolling across desolate stretches of sand. For the first time, Americans and people around the world were able to witness two nations wage war on live television; capturing step by step, the reality of combat and the raw emotion of American sons and daughters. In April 2003, the...

WASHINGTON, March 19, 2008 – Americans must be as committed to defeating the terrorist enemy as that enemy is to defeating the United States and all that for which the nation stands, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said today at the Navy League’s Sea, Air, Space Expo here. The deputy secretary spoke before an overflow crowd at the Expo on the fifth anniversary of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He said the war on terror will be a long war more analogous to the Cold War than a war with a definite beginning and end. He cited similarities between...

FAYETTEVILLE, North Carolina (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama criticized Republican John McCain on Wednesday for misidentifying Iraqi extremists, saying he fails to understand the war has emboldened U.S. enemies. ADVERTISEMENT On the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the war took center stage on the U.S. campaign trail. Obama attacked both McCain and his Democratic opponent, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, as representing conventional thinking in Washington that needs to be changed in the November election. McCain and Clinton backed a 2002 resolution supporting U.S. military action against Iraq. Clinton's campaign spokesman Phil Singer accused Obama...

CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden will be issuing a new message timed to the fifth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, a militant Web site with close connections to the group said Wednesday. "Urgent, very soon by the will of God," read the announcement of the new message "the response is what you see and not what you hear, by the warrior sheik, Osama bin Laden." Iraq marked the fifth anniversary of the war on Wednesday. The announcement was text only and showed no pictures of the elusive militant leader. The message would be bin Laden's...

President George W. Bush will deliver remarks on the Global War on Terror on Wednesday, March 19, 2008, at 10 a.m. EDT, in the Pentagon Auditorium.

WASHINGTON - Five years after launching the U.S. invasion of Iraq, President Bush is making some of his most expansive claims of success in the fighting there. Bush said last year's troop buildup has turned Iraq around and produced "the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden." Massive anti-war demonstrations were planned in downtown Washington to mark Wednesday's anniversary of the war, which has claimed the lives of nearly 4,000 U.S. troops. Across the river at the Pentagon, Bush was to give a speech to warn that backsliding in recent progress fueled by the increase of 30,000 troops he...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush will acknowledge on Wednesday the Iraq war has been fought at a high cost but will insist a U.S. troop buildup has opened the door to a "major strategic victory" against Islamic militants. "The successes we are seeing in Iraq are undeniable," Bush will say in an upbeat assessment of the U.S.-led campaign in a speech marking the fifth anniversary of the war, according to excerpts released on Tuesday. With less than 11 months left in office and his approval ratings near the lows of his presidency, Bush is trying to shore up...

Realism In Iraq By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Tuesday, March 18, 2008 .... As John McCain and Dick Cheney observe progress of the surge in person, new revelations show how important Iraq is to al-Qaida. Electing a Democrat president would squander our gains. Top Democrats are so committed to the position that liberating Iraq will go down as a monumental blunder that the most powerful tsunami of facts will not change their minds. Meeting this week with top Iraqi politicians as well as with Gen. David Petraeus, Sen. McCain, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, provided a strong dose of realism about...

Five years have now passed since the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney, in Iraq with Sen. John McCain — the presumptive Republican nominee for president — summarized the five years by saying, “If you reflect back on those five years, it’s been a difficult, challenging, but nonetheless successful endeavor. We’ve come a long way in five years, and it’s been well worth the effort.” Democratic presidential aspirant Sen. Hillary Clinton called the war a failure. The invasion of Iraq probably was a mistake, and certainly its execution was disastrous. But a unilateral and precipitous withdrawal by the...

WASHINGTON, March 18, 2008 – The United States intends to complete the mission in Iraq, Vice President Richard B. Cheney told troops there today, on the eve of Operation Iraqi Freedom’s fifth anniversary. On the second day of a 10-day surprise visit to Iraq, the vice president vowed commitment to what he characterized as an ideological fight against violent extremists who prefer tyranny to democracy. “Understanding all the dangers of this new era, we have no intention of abandoning our friends, or allowing this country of 170,000 square miles to become a staging area for further attacks against Americans,”...

Are we succeeding in Iraq? Look no further than the front page of your daily newspaper. What had been a steady barrage of bad news has now slowed to a trickle. Our military’s success on the ground is changing public expectations as well. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that most Americans (53 percent) now think “the U.S. will ultimately succeed in achieving its goals” in Iraq. That’s up from 42 percent in the fall of 2007. Why the improvement? We can thank the “surge.” A little more than a year...

Believe it or not, "shock and awe" is five years old Wednesday. The fifth anniversary of the start of the Iraq occupation by the United States and its allies will be marked by scores of protests, prayer vigils and marches across the country Wednesday, including a half-dozen events in Madison. The centerpiece of local activity is a rally and vigil on the Capitol Square at State Street, beginning at 11 a.m. Wednesday. Hundreds of participants are expected, with a five-minute silent vigil at 11:55 a.m., followed by the peace train parade around the square. "Wear black and bring a candle...

Patriotic Americans are being urged to wear red, white and blue clothing this Wednesday, March 19, 2008, to show support for our troops and their mission on the fifth anniversary of the liberation of Iraq from the terrorist regime of Saddam Hussein.Anything from scarves and ties to a full blown Uncle Sam suit will do. When someone compliments you on your patriotic attire, take the opportunity to explain to them why you're wearing the red, white and blue on Wednesday.The anti-American left will be out in the streets across the country that day protesting and rioting. Most of us will...

An "anniversary" of a "war" is in many ways the least useful occasion on which to take stock of something like the Anglo-American intervention in Iraq, if only because any such formal observance involves the assumption that a) this is, in fact, a war and b) it is by that definition an exception from the rest of our engagement with that country and that region. I am one of those who, for example, believes that the global conflict that began in August 1914 did not conclusively end, despite a series of "fragile truces," until the fall of the Berlin Wall...

Late last week, the Defense Department released an analysis of 600,000 documents captured in Iraq prepared by the Institute for Defense Analyses, a federally funded think tank. Here's the attention-grabbing sentence from the report's executive summary: "This study found no 'smoking gun' (i.e. direct connection) between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda." Relying on a leak of the executive summary, ABC News reported that the study was "the first official acknowledgment from the U.S. military that there is no evidence Saddam had ties to Al Qaeda." There followed a brief item in the Washington Post that ran under the headline "Study...

As the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom nears, the fabulists are again trying to weave their own version of the war. The latest myth is that the "surge" is working. In President Bush's pithy formulation, the United States is now "kicking ass" in Iraq. The gallant Gen. David Petraeus, having been given the right tools, has performed miracles, redeeming a situation that once appeared hopeless. Sen. John McCain has gone so far as to declare that "we are winning in Iraq." While few others express themselves quite so categorically, McCain's remark captures the essence of the emerging story line:...

An al-Qaida-linked extremist group warned Pope Benedict XVI on Monday that he and the West were "doomed," as protesters raged across the Muslim world to demand more of an apology from the pontiff for his remarks about Islam and violence. The Mujahedeen Shura Council, an umbrella organization of Sunni Arab extremist groups that includes al-Qaida in Iraq, issued a statement on a Web forum vowing to continue its holy war against the West. The authenticity of the statement could not be independently verified. The group said Muslims would be victorious and addressed the pope as "the worshipper of the cross"...