There are a lot of soldiers in Iraq who are asking the infamous question once uttered by the late Admiral James Stockdale, Ross Perot's 1992 running mate: "Why am I here?"

This question is more prominently dispensed from the lips of those assigned to Baghdad neighborhood patrols who are instead finding themselves behind defenses that might have stopped the Republican Guard. Some reportedly "voice resentment over a mission they believe is ill-defined." The infamous Marxist-Leninist Charles M. Madigan of the Communist Chicago Tribune proposes that the reason so many American soldiers are in Iraq and Afghanistan is due to "a big mistake."

Our use of military force in Iraq was wrong. [T]he war in Iraq has become a rolling, painful, expensive and bloody disaster for us and for the Iraqis. It was constructed on a foundation of bad intelligence, lies and hyperbole. The record on Iraq shows clearly how propaganda, flawed intelligence and a longing for revenge combined to put us in exactly the wrong place.

That "longing for revenge" isn't being helped by American actions in Iraq, all of which come at the expense of the Iraqis themselves. They have watched, frustrated and silent, as their nation is plundered for everything it has while they do without. McClatchy News stringers in Iraq have been featured in recent stories expressing the frustrations of the common citizen trying to sleep in stifling heat due to a serious lack of electricity or fuel for generators while they hear of millions of barrels of oil being pumped everyday through Basra, where the Coalition forces protect the huge tankers carrying away their national treasure from those who would seek to prevent the burglary.

"Kick their ass and take their gas", and they won't want something back someday, right? Dream on! Continue to hear everyday about how Iran is supplying those who choose to take up arms against the invaders of their nation while stopping your ears when it is mentioned that far more support for the rebels is provided by our good friends in Saudi Arabia, home to "Uncle" Bandar and King Abdullah, as the radical anti-American Washington Post's Thomas Ricks attempts to disseminate.