BREAKING: Last U.S. Combat Troops Leave Iraq

After 2,709 days, and as President Obama promised during his campaign for president, the War in Iraq is officially over as of today, when members of the last combat brigade crossed the border into Kuwait approximately an hour and a half ago.

7 1/2 years, 4,415 American lives, and untold Trillions of dollars later, this misbegotten war that began during my junior year of college is finally over. Thank God.

Saddam Hussein had no connection to 9/11, and he had no Weapons of Mass Destruction. Make no mistake: George W. Bush started this war on false pretenses, then paid for it with 5 tax cuts, creating massive deficits. Everytime a GOPer talks about fiscal restraint, I think of Iraq and laugh, then I cry.

Hopefully we will learn the lessons of Iraq:

• Demand hard evidence of danger to country before launching an invasion we have no plan to get out of.
• NEVER let anyone suggest that opponents of the war do not support the troops or are somehow unpatriotic.
• Moving the goalposts for success means there is no plan for success.

One last note. Today being the end of the War in Iraq provides thunderous irony given the fact that right now I'm looking at a Google ad on BSB for Pat Toomey for U.S. Senate that says "Limited Government, Responsibility over Recklessness." Really Pat? Where were those principles when your party started this misbegotten war with lies?