Australia's "The Age:" Iraq War was a failure

According to Australian "The Age," "Iraq is an example of a profound failure of US policy. Afghanistan must not fall victim to a similar failure by either of the rivals for the White House."

It was?

Our invasion to remove a psychotic murderous despot who violated 16 U.N. sanctions was a failure?

The fact that we established a DEMOCRACY in a hotbed of theocratic, human-right violating, totalitarian countries was a failure?

How was it failure? Because we couldn't convince feckless European countries with close ties to Saddam to assist in the military option?

Some points:

"Senator Obama, who opposed the war from the outset, says he will withdraw America's combat troops from Iraq by mid-2010. "We made a strategic error," he says of the invasion."

First, Obama was not a Illinois senator during 2002, which precluded him from taking a stance on the Iraq War. More than likely he, like his Democratic brethren who authorized military action in 2002, he would have voted FOR said military action. Second, undoubtedly the Bush Administration made strategic errors AFTER we topped Saddam's Baathist regime; but let their be no doubt that the invasion and the way our military prosecuted the war was NOT a strategic error. One could almost grant the opposition that it would have been better to leave Saddam as a counterweight to the growing Iranian hegemony, but a moot point exists.

Second, we in the United States hear too often from foreign countries that we have not ingratiated ourselves around the world. For that matter, we have tarnished our image by "occupying" a Muslim country, say some.

Of course, those dissenters forget that according to the Development Assistance Committee of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (DAC/OECD), "the United States remains the largest donor of "official development assistance" at $23.53 billion in 2006."

Those same naysayers also forget the the billions of dollars in foreign aid we give during global catastrophes; for example, we gave over two billion dollars in foreign aid, the most of any country, in response to the 2004 tsunami that struck Indonesia, Sri Lanka, etc.

Or the critics disregard the fact that we deposed of a violent thug in Saddam Hussein, a man who used chemical gas on Kurdish dissidents in Halabja (just one event in a campaign where Saddam called for the extermination of the entire Kurdish population; he ultimately butchered 182,000 people), killed 148 Shiite militants in 1982, murdered 8,000 members of Masoud Barzani's clan (leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, reduced the population of the Shiite Marsh Arabs from 250,000 to 30,000 through starvation and forced migration, and ultimately murdered approximately 500,000 Shiites in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Furthermore, according to About.Com: Civil Liberties:

"Although most of Hussein's large-scale atrocities took place during the 1980s and early 1990s, his tenure was also characterized by day-to-day atrocities that attracted less notice. Wartime rhetoric regarding Hussein's "rape rooms," death by torture, decisions to slaughter the children of political enemies, and the casual machine-gunning of peaceful protesters accurately reflected the day-to-day policies of Saddam Hussein's regime. Hussein was no misunderstood despotic "madman." He was a monster, a butcher, a brutal tyrant, a genocidal racist--he was all of this, and more."

So where's the love? Why is the United States vilified? It is because the appeasers in ineffective Europe and other supporters of Saddam's murderous regime did not want the thug deposed? Is it because they did business with the man, despite numerous United Nations sanctions? Or could it be they despised the United States for finally growing a set and usurping the murderous tyrant?