President Obama gave a really outstanding speech this evening, as usual. It's one of his gifts - this speechmaking. The tone and words were just right for the occasion. But let's not kid ourselves. If we think that we are past troubles caused by interests in Iraq, we are delusional.

I keep thinking about Iran and the Shah. We took over that country and put this puppet government in, and it lasted for a couple decades, and the politicians probably patted themselves on the back and went on the Meet the Press and said everything was awesome there and that we were saving their country. And here we are decades later and Iran is one if not our worst antagonist country.

So it's way too soon to judge Iraq on it's so-called "success." In fact, I'm sure that we have created hatred that will take centuries to overcome. In fact, Michael O'Hanlon, who, at the end of the Iraq war supported the "surge" and seems to me to generally be a military apologist, said on an NPR interview, that he estimated between 100 and 150 thousand civilians killed in Iraq during the war. That has to lead to the question as to whether we have any kind of a conscience as a nation?

Obama took advantage of the airtime and posted some campaign rhetoric. Can you blame him? I'm surprised the networks put his speech on, if you want to know the truth. But the most distasteful of what he said was his warmongering for the war in Afghanistan at the same time he is pulling out of Iraq. It's not good.