As soon as I read this one, I knew they would feature it.
Good work B.

First, the Dems will tie the hands of our military with ridiculous rules of engagment (like don't defend yourself).
Then they'll keep them in Iraq twice as long as necessary (We're still in Germany for Pete's sake).
Then they'll finally leave & declare victory.
Lastly, they will blame all that has happen & will happen on Bush.

Of course.. they arleady started it:
"Bush skeptical of Democrat troop reduction idea" on Yahoo News

In the end, the Dems will probably only make it worst. They could do what thy complained about so many times and INCREASE troops and actually try to increase war operations (on the level of when we first entered Iraq), but it would seem that they are taking the vote as Americans wanting to just leave instead of having the war handled correctly.

We want it handled correctly. No half stepping (like bush) and no cut and run (like what the Dems seem to be going toward... I mean 4 - 6 months troops will start to pull out? no way that is going to work)

And who are they going to blame? Bush. Is it his fault? yes. But now whos's bby is it? The Dems. If it gets really fugged up, who is to blame?

Troop pull out is not the answer. A real assault on insergents is the answer.

You got some guts and some hard answers, I find that refreshing and I thank you for your honesty.
To my question, How and why and by who's army? Regaring who was going to kill millions of Iraqi's?

"Excellent question. One distinct possibility is by Forces belonging to Iraq. It's probable, not just possible that without the U.S. watching over their shoulders, the Iraqi government will quickly turn into a power struggle ending in a totalitarian regime. However in my personal favorite guess, Iran will exploit the power vaccuum."

I just don't feel that that is our problem, Iraqi's are not citizens of the United States, they are not Americans, if they want help the UN should be helping them secure their country, oh thats right the UN doesn't do sh*t anymore except launder money meant for starving Iraqi's. Still, standing up and defending their country is their job, you say it's ok for us to commit dollars and lives, to the cause, and we have, but I just don't see things improving with our presence there.

If you are going to equate Iraq to Vietnam, and say that "we had prior obligations we ignored" clarify what that means. There we fought communism which wasn't really a fight that needed to be fought.

Even if it was necessary to be fought, at what cost do you believe we should have accepted to win that war? How many hundreds of thousands of Americans and how many Vietnamese civillians needed to die before we'd have won that war?

Iraq didn't attack us in Gulf war #1 until we started attacking them. I'm not justifying their actions, or defending their invastion of Kuwait. My point is, we overstayed our welcome in Vietnam many years, and still lost the war, tactical reasons, poor executive decisions. Name your reason for why Vietnam is communist, but not for lack of trying.

This administration believed before the war that this was a "six month operation", there were talks about when to launch it to take advantage of good months of the year weather-wise. Well when you're in the war for 3 years, you hit good and bad months weather wise. The troops, were ill equipped to deal with the situation, via body armor, unarmored vehicles, no post war plan, in-sufficient numbers, lack or proper training/wargaming. There were dozens of quotes and situations where the wargaming did not progress in line with what we've attempted to do. At many leves of command from guys in the field.

Then look at the prison scandals, clearly these troops were neither trained in the proper way to treat POW's or detainees, the post war has been a disaster that claims more and more lives both civillian and American daily.

It is remarkable that the troops have been able to keep morale high, keep the fight up this long, and that is a testament to the indomitable spirit of our Armed forces and the professionalism with which they have taken up this fight.

However, we have lost the ability to control the events in Iraq, we cannot stop the murder, the kidnappings, the unrest, we cannot live Iraqi's lives for them, they need to come together without our help to fix their problems, to clean up the streets, to make or break their country.

I wrote
We shouldn't have taken responsibility for the Iraqi's any farther then removing Saddam, and helping to set up a government, the time is now in Iraq,

"But we did take that responisibility. You can't expect people who have been ground into the dirt since the British occupied the country to spontaneously grow the infrastructure and the lifestyle to magically support themselves. You may not have voted for that war, but there remains an obligation as a citizen of the country that implemented it."

We do not have an obligation, the Iraqi's have an obligation, we aren't asking for our money back or for them to pay taxes, or offer reperations, compensations to the familys of our troops for their lost loved ones. It is the citizens of the country in which they live, under which government their people have formed to fight for their life, their liberty, their pursuit of happiness. If they don't do the fighting, they haven't earned and will not continue to earn it as the brave men and women of the armed forces do for us.

God may have created the world and granted men unalienable rights, these are principals we believe in, why we began the fight for them, against the brutal dictator and regime, but it is their necessity, if they believe in these rights as well, to carry the fight, to rally around their leaders, to die for their country. This is their duty, their responsibility, not ours sir.

"It will take a long time to change the mindsets, and to engrain lasting values, and a lasting way of life. Most of the things that are worth doing most in life are difficult, and slow to be accomplished."

By the response to my statemen that it could take many more months, years or even decades. I cannot in good faith accept a deployment of our soliders in this cause for the period of years more or decades. If we were fighting for Texas against Mexico, or Alaska against Canada, yes perhaps, I'm not saying the Iraqi's are not as entitled as Americans to unalienable rights, but they need to take the stand sooner rather then later as we are 3 years into a six month operation.

There are troops that haven't seen their families in over a year, and we are denying them their unalienable rights by keeping them in this war.

We went to Iraq with the wrong mind set in my opinion. We used smart weapons and basically tried to make this war as bloodless as possible. This succeeded very well, but is the root cause of the current, IMHO the main problem now. The only thing the Iraqis lost for the most part was things like electrical power, their jobs, and other basic needs. What does a person do if his has all the time in the world on his hands? You've heard the phase, "Idle hands do the devils work". I think that is true in this case.

In the Japan, Germany, and Korea examples, they lost everything, not just jobs and basic needs. The whole infrastructure was destroyed. Every able bodied person was needed to help rebuild. Sure there were some guerillas, but it is hard to pick up a weapon when you need to rebuild your home. That didn't happen in Iraq, we just gave a large group of people all the free time in the world.

This idea of unity in a country by having an active part in its rebuilding never occurred. I hate to say it but I'll come right out with it: This war was not devastating enough to the average Iraqi, in the terms of destroyed infrastructure. A dead family member is terrible, but it only strengthens the resolve to hurt the perceived occupiers. The same thing happened in Vietnam....bombing jungle and just killing people. It increases hate but allows the survivors to focus that attention on the attackers.

So, that being said, and please believe when I say war is terrible and should be a last resort; We should have gone in, did an incredible amount of damage to buildings, especially homes, markets, roads and bridges in every city and village. Minimize the number of foreign companies that could participate in rebuilding Iraq. This would have the effect of pulling the work force from the people, and virtually eliminating unemployment. Money should have been paid for work done at prevailing rates, not inflated for war profiteers. This would have probably been cheaper to do in the long run. Working together on a common goal helps unite people just as much or more that hate, and the hate was probably already there anyway. More people would have been inclined to think Saddam brought this upon them, instead of America. US troops should have secured military installations, stop looters, and prevent foreign fighters from entering the country as the three main priorities. Curfews (dusk till dawn) should have been initiated immediately and continued through the occupation with orders to shoot violators on sight, no exceptions. A small but carefully screened Iraqi force should have been created and trained immediately. US troops should have been withdrawn after about 18 months (with the exceptions of advisors). Their presence among the local populace should have been decreased at increased rates during the last 6 months while Iraqi police/army increased.

I know it's easy to be a Monday morning strategist, but I would have been remiss if I hadn't put a forth a resolution. I think we failed to look hard at what worked in World War II and Korea, and became so worried about world opinion and doing the "right" thing (sparing lives and property). I think a nation cannot fight a war that way....war, when used, should not be half-hearted, but total. I'm sure many would disagree with my conclusion; I don't personally like it myself.

For the same reasons I stated above I think Afghanistan is un-winnable. The people there have nothing to lose, except each other, not much in the way of material things. The only chance (it's small and very time consuming) is to give everyone something permanent in their lives, modern housing, schools, and regular jobs. I just don't think we have the stomach or purse strings to stick it out that long, as it could be 20+ years.