Kind of makes you sit back and wonder who the real enemy is...I keep hearing that these countries are grateful for the assistance from other nations on the terrorists issues, yet they sit back and ' thumb their noses ' at the help.....I don't know about you, but I don't stay anywhere that I'm not wanted...it's high time to pull out of every country..and that includes a halt to the aide shipments that somehow winds up in the hands of certian warlords, and start taking care of the citizens of the United States...WE have major problems here at home to take care of.....

Karzai Wants U.S. to Stop Arresting Taliban,

By Trisha Huang

April 26 (Bloomberg) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai said that he wants U.S. forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban and their sympathizers, and to bring an end to civilian casualties, the New York Times reported.

The continued threat of arrest and past mistreatment were discouraging the Taliban from laying down their arms, Karzai said in an interview with the newspaper. Karzai also criticized British and American conduct of the war and said his government should be given the lead in policy decisions, the Times reported.

Karzai said the real terrorist threat lay in sanctuaries of the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan, and not in Afghan villages, the newspaper reported. The Afghan leader, who's been in office six years, is facing election next year, the report said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/ap...

I think they should all come home too..Let the terrorists have their way. As I have stated in the past. It was only a matter of time before Sadaam jumped in bed with the nasty boys. Yes. Let's leave and let them build themselves up without interevtion so we can come home and feed those who refuse to feed themselves, provide care for those who refuse to care for themselves. Yes..all thjose folks who have no inspiration to get going. Yes..Let's by all means, make it easier to freeload. Then lets revamp medical care and make it another victim of the "lowest common denominator" system. Dare I say we fix the illegal immigration problems, or would THAT not be one of the problems of which you speak?

Then, when all those who have chosen NOT to address the REAL problem and are now all cozy and smug in their shaded homes, those good ol' boys we left to their own devices in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever they USED to have to hide but have now centralized their powerbase and utilized the assets that come with controlling a large and strategic part of the world, who have employed thier own  means to stage whatever attacks they like will be free to drop in on our in intrusive little country and do even more damage to the USA than 9/11..And who will the Michael Moore's of the country blame then? You can bet your behind it won't be themselves even though they spent five years clamoring for us to leave the poor Terrorists alone. And yes everyone who still doesnt get it. We are NOT fighting Iraq any more and have not been since 2003. We are fighting TERRORISTS.

Well..One thing is certain. Bush has no mare say in what happens in the future of this war on terror and whoever takes his place had better be ready to deal with the realities of the fight. I almost hope it IS a liberal who wins(even though I KNOW it wont be)just so I can sit back and say "Now what"?...Watch what you ask for, my isolationst friends, you may just get it!

Iraq: The War Within

On May 1 George Bush, the president of the United States, gave a speech on the aircraft USS Abraham Lincoln declaring an "end to major combat operations" in Iraq.

Five years on with violence continuing unabated across the country Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel Hamid - in a special five part series - looks at the major events of the Iraq war.

Each week will focus on one of the last five years looking at the events and the policies that helped shape Iraq and the current chaos in the country.

2003

The lack of a plan for restructuring Iraq and moving the country forward after the invasion helped to shape events in 2003.

Policies were put in place that contributed to creating a divide between the various secterain grioups within the country.

The violence escalated and started to take on sectarian overtones as the year went on.

The year ended with the capture of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein who was found in a spider hole near his home town of Tikrit

The US lead coalition were hoping that this would bring an end to much of the violence but it had no effect whatsoever

Among the people interviewed for the programme are: Paul Bremer, the man first put in charge of restructuring Iraq by the US, Ayad Allawi, the interim Iraqi prime minister in 2004 Clare Short, a British minister at the time of the invasion and a host of other key personalities.

http://english.aljazeera.ne...

This war has gone on long enough. The middle-East will always be a den of vipers, nothing we will EVER do will change that.

I may not agree with a lot of what Bo Gritz has to say, but I do agree, in principle at least, to one of his ideas. Bring ALL our troops home, and concentrate on our own problems.

Why do we have to be the world's policeman? This may have worked in the 40's, but no longer. Leave 'em to their own devices. Take care of our own citizens, first and foremost.

Foreign oil? Why, when there's all that black gold up in Alaska? Sooner, I hope, rather than later, we'll need to turn to alternative fuels anyway. So why not work on that?

I don't have the answers, but I know they don't lay in sustaining a war we never should have begun. Let's bring ALL our troops home...

Good.  Let's bring 'em home *NOW*.

Mission accomplished! We took Saddam out of power and we had him killed, game over!
I do not believe that it makes a difference if we pull out today or in ten years. Iraq will go to Hell when we leave. I say let it.
Iraq has had several years to learn to stand on their own. We have spent billions and billions training their armed forces and if they can't control peace then let the strong survive. It is time to sink or swim..............

My husband and I were amazed when we read about this, too.  I believe the Iraqi army runs from the fight because they can.  They run because they know we won't.  At some point we're gonna leave Iraq and then they're all on their own.  Are they gonna run then?  The difference between the Iraqi army and the jihadists is the army is there for a paycheck and the jihadists are there for heaven with 40 virgins.  The army wants to live to pick up its next paycheck and the jihadists got nothing to live for and are more than willing to fight to the death.  Are AWOL Iraqi troops kicked out of the army, like they would be in the U.S. army?  No, they still get their U.S.-paid paycheck regardless, so why stick their neck out? 

Mark, you don`t have a clue, But that`s what Bakersfield is all about, They didn`t fire because they are only there for the income, they do not believe in what BushCo wants for them, they became disalusioned in the 1st 90 days as the US allowed all the infastructure to be looted, all the Nation Museum (remember thier country is one of the first cultures in the human history) ransacked, the Nation Treasury plundered ( and the blame went to Sadam), All the Troops and Police disbanded without pay, of course they are going to revolt against the occupiers who took the bread off the table for thier families,And all the local jobs of rebuilding being contracted to the US BushCo profiteers at 4 times the cost ... We raped and plundered thier counrty under false and unlawful regulations, will you be the same way when the US is invaded and plunderes?

Well there's only three choices concerning Bush

A. He IS as stupid as I think

B. He IS a a buttboy for big oil

C. Both

I'm leaning towards C

You know, when you are supported by big oil, then act surprised when someone mentions the cost of gasoline, there are no other alternative explanations.

Mark, the Iraqi troops aren't deserting because they don't deserve freedom or won't fight for it.

They're refusing to fire on other Iraqis in order to hand over their oil to our corporations.  Big difference there.

.

"Al Qaeda in Iraq" is only there because we're keeping them safe.  They need our continued presence to survive.

Anyone who could make me look like a mental midget would be FAR too intelligent to run for President!

We went into Iraq, in my opinion, to beat Sadaam to the punch and we succeeded. The terrorists would have fled there eventually and Sadaam would have supported them, not because he likes them, but because he hates us as much as they do, just for duifferent reasons. Why we are there is no longer relevant. What we should now do is at hand, and I say let's stop treating this action as if it were a political game! Hell! Police hit crack houses harder that we have been hitting terrorists and with less concern for the people next door and THEY get away with it.

As far as Darfur..Bush isn't as stupid as you would like me to believe he is. He knows that we could not sustain another front and also that, win or lose, he would be toasted by the left. He is catching a lot less flak by staying out of that mess than should he enter the fray. It is unlikely that the democrats will win the election, but if they should, I will be fascinated to see how they handle the problem of Iraq and terrorism seeing as neither She nor He have any sort of real plan. "I'll bring the troopps home" is not a plan, it's just talk and there is already plenty of that.

You should not stop with the Christian attacks on the innocent, Ojo..You need to include the Muslims, The Mongols, The Gauls, the Romans, The Germans(twice!), The French, The British, The Dutch, the Japanese..um..did I miss anyone..History is replete with peoples attacking without provocation, or at least what THEY considered provocation. So don't single out the country that protects your right to disagree and to vote to see that it stays that way. At least be fair and thourough

This (what was happening, is happening, and will continue to happen in Iraq) is why I cringe when I read opinions by "average" Americans who state that they resent presidential candidates who "use words and express ideas" that they do not understand.  They will not vote for a candidate who is more intelligent than themselves.

So we got a president, who by his own admission, does not read and therefore, probably never read or even heard about the results of the Crusades to the Holy Lands.  In an oversimplification of even Cliff Notes of the Crusades, what basically happened was this:

Well-armed Christian soldiers entered the Moslem lands of the Middle East. in a series of "shock and awe" battles won over the cities, had to fortify and hold the cities because of constant "suicide" attacks, and finally, after the occupation stretched on for years, gradually returned home leaving the cities to be reoccupied by the Moslems.  Basic lesson:  You can't go into a foreign land and militarily force cultural, political, or religious changes.

I want a president who makes me look like a mental midget.  One who, somewhere in his academic training read and understood the words, "Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it."

That's a start Mark. There is nothing wrong with wanting to liberate people, but we have to choose our battles. Why exactly did we go into Iraq? Was it because Saddam was a threat to us? No. Was it because Saddam flew airplanes into our buildings? No. Was it because Saddam was harboring Al Queda? No.

If we went in just as liberators, why do we ignore Darfur, why do we ignore North Korea, why do we ignore any of a number of other repressive regimes? We went after Saddam under the false pretense that he had weapons of mass destruction, even though all the experts said it was not the case.

So if we want the role of world police, and we're worried about weapons of mass destruction, why do we give Pakistan a pass? They know EXACTLY where Bin Laden is. Why do we give North Korea a pass? After all, he makes Saddam look like a moderate, and they DO have nukes, and they DO have missles that can reach Los Angeles.

I find it hard to believe that an administration can be so dimwitted about world history and culture. There was no Al Queda in Iraq till we went there. Did they really think when they created the vacuum in Iraq, suddenly Shiites and Sunis would sing Cum bay ya?

And the worst part is that twice as many of our kids are now dead because of this idiot, than died on 911. Another 35,000 of our kids are maimed for life, and another quarter of a million are having psychological problems. Meanwhile our reputation as liberators has been stained in a short few years.

I had no problem with spanking the Taliban, they DID help terrorists fly planes into our buildings. But what really irks me, is that after all this death and destruction, of not only our own, but a lot of Iraqi civilians, which dwarfs what Saddam did in actual casualties, we STILL haven't caught the mastermind, and the guys that are hiding him are considered our 'buddies'.

My opinion has nothing to do with conservatives, or liberals. Both sides can be extremely stupid. It has to do with what is right, and what is wrong. This war was just plain wrong, and no matter how long we stay there, it will never resemble a democracy like ours. You are right Mark, Civil wars are internal. Nobody came in and made us liberate ourselves from the Brits, and all taking Saddam out did was cause an imbalance of power in the Middle East that has Iran licking their chops in anticipation.