Now That The Iraq War Will Once Again Be An Issue In A Presidential Election . . .

. . . shouldn't the Democrats give some serious thought to whether Hillary is the right candidate for 2016?  A couple days ago, I wrote:

When Republicans bring up her initial support for the Iraq Debacle (which they will certainly do), Hillary must push back by stating that the only reason Republicans are running with this issue now is because they are attempting to re-write the history of that war. She must point out that BushCo intentionally lied to Congress and the American people with regard to the threat Iraq posed, and she should go into great detail with regard to what these lies were.  And yes, she should explicitly state that these liars -- Cheney included -- should be serving time in prison right now for war crimes.

Hillary did chime in today on this issue by once again admitting her vote to authorize the Iraq War was a mistake, and then she said this:

"What we now see is a different and very dangerous situation. The United States is doing what it can, but ultimately this has to be a struggle that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people are determined to win for themselves and we can provide support, but they're going to have to do it."

Not good enough, dammit. Her comment demonstrates why Hillary should not be the Democratic nominee in 2016. Given that she voted to authorize the war, she is not in the position to take on the Republicans as they desperately try to "revise" the history of the Iraq Debacle.

You say it is not fair for me to criticize Hillary when so many other politicians got it wrong?  Well, the fact is that lots of people saw that the plan to invade Iraq was bullshit well before hostilities began. Twenty-two Democrats in the U.S. Senate -- and one Independent -- voted against authorization. All Senate Republicans, however, voted for it.  Barack Obama, before he became a US Senator, said this during the run-up to Iraq War:

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars.

I think it was Winston Churchill who once said: "History is written by the victors."  The corollary is, of course, that the losers don't get to write shit. The Republicans, however, are trying to turn that truism on its head.

Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, and the rest of the losers who caused that massive clusterfuck in Iraq -- and the current crop of their GOP apologists -- are desperately trying to re-write history. We cannot, as a people, let them succeed.  All of their victims -- namely, the tens of thousands dead and injured American troops and the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis -- deserve better.