“Given that we are having more and more compensation seeking veterans, I’d like to suggest that you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out,” Dr. Perez wrote in a March 20 e-mail.

It’s bad enough when our government shortchanges veterans on the treatment they need. To have a medical professional do it is unconscionable.

So is the fact Perez still has her job with the VA.

When did I hear a prediction like this before? Oh yeah, George W. Bush, a few years back, when he was announcing mission accomplished (though without the 2013 deadline, of course). And pretty much ever since, when he and his sock-puppets in Congress are explaining that if we just hang tough and never question the war effort or the (Republican) president, victory is assured.

In fairness, McCain did detail his strategy a couple of years back: Put the Sunnis and Shiites together in one room and tell them “Stop the BS.” Yes, I’m sure that will work.

And when was that, I wonder? When he signed off on his cabinet sanctioning and authorizing torture of American prisoners? When he kept telling America he was trying to avoid war, even though he’d already decided on regime change? When he kept telling America that we had to invade because Saddam had thrown out the UN weapons inspectors—even though this wasn’t true?

And by what logic is the son of a former president, Yale graduate, millionaire not an elitist himself?

Then the writer goes on to assert that Bush and McCain “will go down in history as the men who brought democracy, peace and stability to an otherwise Islamo-fascist, theocratic area of the world that was hellbent on killing anyone and everyone who didn’t cater to their deranged extremist beliefs.”

Ah, no. Until we invaded, Iraq was a largely secular nation. We brought the theocratic whackjobs to Iraq, which is why “democracy, peace and stability” are nowhere to be found in the Iraq Bush made.

Then there are the usual right-wing rants about how the enemy are fascists (they’re evil, but not fascist); everyone criticizing the war is doing so for a political agenda (in contrast to war supporters who presumably are noble souls totally removed from base politics) and it’s only because traitorous anti-war activists stabbed the troops in the back that we aren’t proclaiming victory now.

Reading letters like this are kind of unsettling. I believe in reason and negotiation to settle differences; it’s the only way to work things in a democracy where every point of view is entitled to be heard (even if we only hear it long enough to mock it). How do you reason with people who impose their own fantasy world over reality and refuse to admit error?

The writer says “This is what I firmly believe and you can’t change that.” And that’s the problem, we probably can’t.

Strangely enough, McCain forgot to point out that many of those actions, including Saddam’s attack on Iran and his bombing their soldiers with chemical weapons, were sanctioned by the Reagan administration. At the time, our government’s only concern about Saddam’s use of poison gas on the Iranian forces was that it might make it hard for us to criticize other governments for doing it.

And when Congress tried to slap a penalty on Saddam for gassing the Kurds, the White House (Bush I, this time), blocked it.

So if Saddam is such an unparalleled monster of depravity, what did that make his trusted allies, Bush and Reagan?

And it’s not like calling the insurgents “al-Qaida” or saying that Iran is financing “al-Qaida” is going to confuse anyone, is it? It’s not like the question of whether Iran and the masterminds of 9/11 are working together (they’re not, actually—their branches of Islam consider each other heretical) is important? It’s not as if calling the insurgents “al-Qaida” would excuse our staying in Iraq instead of pulling out and going after the real al-Qaida on the Pakistani border, is it?

No, I can’t imagine why the American public would want long-winded explanations of the difference.

So why are Bush and Petraeus suspending further troop withdrawls? Isn’t Iraq a sovereign nation? Aren’t we there at their request? If they don’t want us there and most Americans don’t want us there, why don’t we go?

What an amazing idea. We have multiple accounts of fraud, corruption, stolen money, overpriced services and lost money for which there’s no accounting — now we can turn the whole mess over to the Iraqis and let our contractors bill them. American corporations will still reap the profits of reconstruction and I’m sure nobody will make too much of a fuss if they bilk the Iraqis blind — and of course, we’d never let a US contractor see the inside of an Iraqi jail. So it’s a win-win for everyone but the Iraqis, and who in Washington really cares about them?

(And may I say that the phrase “free ride” in any connection with life in Iraq today is just appallingly idiotic?).

Setting aside how laughable it is to use “free

But since America’s security needs have never had any connection that I’ve noticed to our invasion and occupation of Iraq, I doubt Crocker’s statement will have any impact in DC.

If we’re going to stay in there until the Iraqi military and police can handle the insurgency themselves, no matter how long it takes, won’t they exploit that? Why stand up for the government at the risk of being shot if our military is going to stay in indefinitely and do the fighting for them? Wouldn’t knowing that we won’t be in Iraq after say, 2011, put a little more pressure on them?