The president’s speech today was at best disingenuous or at worst a fraud. I do not say this in jest or lightly. We have lost several thousand innocent Americans and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis in this misguided endeavor. We are not the world’s police. We are not responsible for exporting democracy. If we were, there are countries with leaders just as evil or worst than Saddam Hussein that we should have tackled.

• The president took us to war knowing that Saddam Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with the murder of 3000 Americans and destruction of the twin towers.
  
• The president redirected resources that would otherwise have amassed a force large enough to annihilate the perpetrators of 9/11 and killing Osama Bin Laden.
  
• The president knowingly lied about what the war would cost.
  
• The president knowingly lied about weapons of mass destruction being in Iraq.
  
• The president knowingly lied about Iraqi oil paying for the war. The president is an oilman and knows
  Iraq’s maximum potential oil output. In no way could it pay for this war.
  
• The president has allowed large multinational corporations to use the war as a pretext to provide inflated prices for their services and gouge the taxpayer.
  

After the speech I watched the town hall meeting with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews at the Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville Tennessee. Many people at the town hall meeting have relatives in Iraq and continue to support the president believing that this is a necessary war. This illustrates the power of evangelical indoctrination. No amount of proof of the president’s deceit and ineptitude could convince them that their support was unwarranted.

As much as most of us would like to get out of Iraq we cannot. We should however take concrete steps to begin the resolution the issue.

• The US congress should first impeach the president. When a CEO fails he is fired. When a CEO knowingly gets people killed they are prosecuted. When we take responsibility for the mistake we’ve made we would have won a moral victory.
  
• Halliburton and other parasitic corporations should be fired. Bidding should be opened to both other US companies and foreign companies to help with the rebuilding of Iraq. We are likely to get more meaningful military support if other countries can benefit financially for Iraq’s reconstruction.

The president and his advisors have single handedly caused the death of thousands of people. As a real patriotic American I find it unconscionable. If we as Americans allow the perpetrators of this fraud to go unpunished we will lose the moral high ground we’ve had to many and we would have set a dangerous precedent for future leaders. Ultimately we the American people will pay the price.