I was wondering how the democrats would spin the next attack - on their watch if they win in 08 - to be about Bush. Guess I should have gone with the obvious.

Napolean and Snowball say: Doing nothing is best! Doing something is worst!

Reply By: Dan Greene

I see your point, but when we leave (and we will) we need to be in a position where Iraq is responsible if it fails to survive on its own. We need to make sure we keep as little of the blame as possible, since we will never be free of blame if Iraq fails to stay afloat. Yes we got Saddam, no we never really found anything significant enough of WMD (though I will always say we are not perfect, we make mistakes too) and we helped create a new Gov't, but as long as we are not sure they are ready to go on their own we have to, as a responsibility for bringing more chaos to chaos, help them as much as we can.

I think they are ready, I think it's time for them to take it upon themselves to start cleaning out the streets and bringing some kind of order to this chaos, with us as support. Once we see they can handle it, we can focus more on Al-qaeda in Pakistan. We need to convince the Pakistani Gov't to allow us to be more directly involved at the border instead of keeping us on the Afghan sideline. I would rather we find a way to enter with permission rather than ignore their request to stay out. 1 invasion against the wishes of others is enough for 1 war. We need not to add more wood to the fire.

Featured again. Hey where are all the props everyone gets for being featured? This is like my 4th or 5th featured article. No congrats or anything? Tough crowd.

they are starting to fight it. haven't you been watching the news.

As the title would suggest all I ask is for solutions, any legit solution for any of the issues that we have today. Give me something worth while, something the American people want. Stop pointing fingers and start point towards solutions. I don't wanna wait till 2008 to find out if any of the Presidential candidates will or will not take on the issues.

There hasn't been anymore point to remaining in Iraq as an occupier this summer then there was last year or the year before.

The generals and civilian leadership are continuing to say the same things. From the generals it's, we need more time to develop the indigenous forces things are working in Iraq, progress is being made. From the civilians, we need to give the generals all the time they need, we need to support them until the job it done.(Even though we have been retroactive not proactive on that since pre-invasion) The civilian leadership is also pretty clear in communicating that if we leave before the Iraqi's are fully ready, they have no chance at all in surviving. Considering how right the civilian leadership has been about the decisions and reasons to go to war, the fact that there is no was no "meaningful" WMD in Iraq, how mismanaged the war has been since the beginning, Haliburton, Abu ghraib, the 18 month commitments overseas, the overextension of our military forces to the breaking point, the fact that we are mortgaging the financial future of our own country to support Iraq, I'd have to say the Republican civilian leadership has lost all credibility on knowing which way is North in this situation. They are both fully dedicated to the proposition that leaving, ever, will make Iraq a victory for the terrorists.

That is what you get when you have no timetable for a liberating/occupying nation remaining in country when a local police force and army does not have the full responsibility of ensuring the safety of the local populace because it's our responsibility.

Let's clear something up about terrorism. You cannot "win" where they give up. Anybody willing to die and kill others rather the surrender or live in peace, cannot be deterred. Even if Iraq was magically turned into as fucking peaceful as Oregon or Nevada, TERRORISTS will both not be impressed or DETERRED. The only way to stop them is to kill them. Well playing referee in the middle of a civil war where most of the players are not terrorists but foreign fighters, agents working for governments in the area trying to create influence for the exact situation which is inevitable, Our withdrawal, is not the way to stay responsive and proactive against terrorist organizations.

Further, car bombs exploding, killing dozens or hundreds daily is not the kind of "success" that equates to "being greeted with open arms" What more do we need to accomplish in Iraq to leave? Do we need to get Sunni and Shiite to be in love with each other and inter-marry? Is that the condition for success? Do we need to help them plant flower gardens all over Baghdad and hang posters of "Make love not war" over the bullet holed walls of buildings across their nation.

No. Iraq is their nation, if they want to keep it united, and eliminate an insurgency then THEY have to take the responsibility for that. If their leaders can't come to agreement on how to make a government work with these groups, the people have to elect new leaders who can make it work, or overthrow the government.

People say, if you leave too early, we'll just end up going back. I say that's bullshit, We aren't in Vietnam, we sure didn't win that war, lots of people died because we left, but lots died because we stayed so long without a mission, except contain communism. We spent a good decade there and with no better results then we are accomplishing in Iraq. According the President Bush on the carrier in the Gulf the "Mission (was) Accomplished" In Korea we still are garrisoned but the North Koreans are finally coming around to the idea of a peace treaty instead of a armistice.

An insurgency in Iraq is going to go on for years and years with or without our presence. There is no guarantee that if we stay another 5 or 10 years it will fix the situation. Islamic terrorism and terrorism in general isn't going to just vanish off the face of the Earth because we will it to or try to kill every one of the mother fuckers out there who would do us harm. Just not feasible to get em all.

As for keeping as little blame. How do you shirk off the Abu ghraib prison scandal, how do you wipe the death of tens of thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire off of the colors of the Flag?

I don't think you realize that even with 150,000 troops we cannot force another nation to accept democracy, or peace under freedom, especially if the people are unwilling to change their ways. I'll use the Star Wars example, of the galactic empire vs the rebel alliance. Even with millions of storm troopers, if there are rebels, and they have the support of the people because of the things our country does as an occupier, regardless if it is in the best interest of Iraq, the country can still fall apart.

The reason we didn't find any WMD in Iraq is because there wasn't any. There was no active weapons depot, no chemical weapons development in the semi trailers, no nuclear weapons program. There were Iraqi's who destroyed large amounts of weapons left over from the Iran-Iraq war, and also lost some of the weapons and records. Iraq was not Nazi Germany. People did things in Iraq not because they had a fanatical loyalty to the state, but because Saddam was an evil sun of a bitch that they feared and they lied or covered for each other in order to make him feel powerful.

Certainly there is little need to go gung ho in Pakistan unless we have hard solid intel that that is where the enemy is. Not "sexed up" phony bologna bs Intel and politically motivated invasions with no post war planning sufficient enough to even have an exit strategy if shit should go bad.

How could things be worse in Iraq right now? In Baghdad, we have troops on deployments that last over a year, car bombs killing hundreds daily, and no end in sight, also no exit strategy. I think the only way things could be worse is if they did have WMD and detonated it.

I don't see why you seem to think that leaving is not an acceptable solution. In my opinion, honest and serious, it is the only acceptable solution. The first step to that is assigning a timetable so everybody knows that on this day, America stops taking responsibility for the Iraqi's.

I will point a finger that the Republicans, specifically the Bush administration has consistently forbade congress to get the ball rolling on this necessity. The American people in large part support a withdrawal and why not?

Lots of passion, zero solutions. Did you plan on punctuating his article? Or did you fail to understand that it was not a defense of Iraq, but an accusation that you just verified. Lots of passion, zero solutions.

You just spent a lot of space saying nothing relevant to the topic at hand, just bloviating like the 10 little dwarves running for president.

I have to agree with DrGuy here Dan Greene. My title clear expresses exactly what you just did. My request was simple, give me a decent solution. Something, anything. I'll give you an example of what I mean. Bush gave a solution to the SS problem, personal retirement accounts . Sure not a plan most liked and did not get too far thru Congress and the Senate, but a plan none the less. What other plans have been offered, Bush clearly stated he would consider any idea, I have yet to see any other kind of solution out there. All I see is a lot of criticism towards the only idea on the table. Bush is not the only one with the power to suggest and create a bill to fix the SS problem. Where are all those ideas the previous Presidential candidates who ran against Bush said they had while campaigning?

This is what I mean, even if it's not a solution everyone likes at least it shows they are trying. But where are these idea?



Here you give up before you even try and then you claim what needs to be done but give no plan as to how. How do we kill them? We chase them? We bomb the countries they are hiding in? We level any building they take refuge, even if it's a school or a hospital? Even if it's not in Iraq, how do we take down, or kill as you propose, a group of people who hide in schools and hospitals putting the live of innocent people, especially children, in danger? Do we simply ignore them and accept defeat?

We need, as a country, to make a choice. We need to accept or deny that we are in danger of a group of people determined to do us harm, be it physically, financially or mentally. Once we chose acceptance or denial we then chose what next action to take.

If we accept the danger, do we a) wait for them to attack us, check every person, with no regards to invading the personal space, who enters the country, or do we go after them by either asking the countries they are hiding in to help or force them to help.

If we deny we are in danger and decide to go one with normal life. How do we handle a situation if they did attack while we were distracted, ignoring them?

Questions, questions, questions. I'm often pointed as being ignorant to a lot of things, but I wonder how often people as themselves these questions and if they have a legit and logical answer for them. I believe I do.

we continue to deny of course after all a war on terriosm is only a bumper sticker

We can't just ignore the inevitable...we can't keep thinking there is no war because there is and we just need to come together as a country. Bin Laden should be gone after, the war should be continued until everything is settled...

I love to answer questions. My solution to Iraq is

A. Announce we are leaving!
B. Hold a conference with any nation interested in "post USA occupation" planning. Invite, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, U.A.E, Kuwait, but don't turn down anyone who wants to talk.
C. Spell out situation in Iraq and let each nation speak on its views, let Iraq make agreements with it's neighbors and figure out what it wants to do, who's help it wants to ask for, who's help it needs, how it wants to do things.
D. Let the conference vote on how long we need to stay yet, 30 days, 60, 90, 120. But keep it under 6 months.

E. Leave and let the region handle their own fucking problems.

"Here you give up before you even try"

We have been in Iraq going on 5 years. It was known to the world we would be going in since 2002. It's not news to the UN, or to the neighbors in the region. As for giving up before we have even tried, you can either agree or disagree that there is no military solution to the problem, but it has been tried for half a decade. Some of the goals of the invasion have been met, few if any of the pre-post war stuff will see the light of day while we occupy Iraq, the terrorists, and insurgents have made that clear. The legit members of the government have failed to act work out the problems that have created and kept the insurgency alive.

"You claim what needs to be done but give no plan as to how."

See the above.

"How do we kill them? We chase them?"

Who's the enemy in Iraq? The terrorists? How many are from AQ? Foreign fighters? Lots of these, what are their goals. Setting up post-US withdrawl, connections both political and strategic alliances inside the countries factions. How about the Iraqi's killing each other and shooting us up in the process? They are pissed that their lives suck. Is that a surprise? They are also angry at the rampant unemployment and living conditions. It's a spiraling cycle of violence and chaos that we cannot solve by just sitting on Iraq.

How about the guys setting up roadside bombs and trying to hit us where we are thought to be weak? Some are terrorists, some are foreign fighters, some are Iraqi's pissed about the way things are going. What's clear is the majority are not AQ!

"We bomb the countries they are hiding in?"

We have supposed that UBL and the taliban and AQ has been hiding out in the mountainous region of Pakistan, since 2001 or before! Yet we have yet to setup shop there, we chose to base in Afghanistan and rid the tailban and then work with the Pakistanis to rid AQ from the mountains. It's time for us to go into the mountains and take care of AQ ourselves, the Pakistanis didn't lose WTC 1&2, we did.

The goal in Iraq was only in part to engage terrorists, fact is, evidence of their existence in Iraq was shaky and sparse, and a lot of it was BS. Ridding Iraq of WMD, taking it from Saddam, and taking Saddam out of power were the goals, so he could not develop a program to make Nukes, and then sell it to terrorists.

"We need, as a country, to make a choice. If we accept the danger, do we a) wait for them to attack us, check every person, with no regards to invading the personal space, who enters the country, or do we go after them by either asking the countries they are hiding in to help or force them to help."

Yes we do, we need to make a choice whether or not we are going to allow terrorists to dictate how we treat people from other nations who are not convicted of crimes of war but are detained in our prisons anyway without trial.

We further need to choose to treat these criminals, terrorists, whoever, with the basic human rights that we have fought and died for in the past to secure for people, civilians as well as enemy combatants. Choosing to ignore international laws, denying people liberty without due process and a trial is fueling the flames of those who use media and twist reality to shape their message of hate and destruction. Their ability to recruit is shaped by our image as a torturer, an opponent of Islam, of a massacrer or civilians.

Just because the enemy will use shock tactics to cause us to fear them, and violate the laws we have created for war, cutting off our heads, and targeting civilians doesn't make it right for us to be, caging people like animals, to denying them the right to practice their religion, and continuing to occupy Iraq. All of this gives the terrorists the political, ammo to continue to recruit, and make it a battle of us oppressing "them".

This should be a battle of right versus wrong. Of people committing criminal acts which on the scale they are willing, equate to acts of war, but just because it is a war we shouldn't pull out the ability of freedom living people to try suspects of terror crimes and punish them according to those laws. It doesn't mean we should hold people for years without evidence without charging them with crimes or war or terror.

"We need to accept or deny that we are in danger of a group of people determined to do us harm, be it physically, financially or mentally. Once we chose acceptance or denial we then chose what next action to take."

We shouldn't deny the danger of terrorists and their aims, but we shouldn't throw the entire Muslim population of the world into that lot. Nor should we be performing the job of security and government in Iraq as an occupier which is what we are doing, and how we are being seen by the rest of the world. If it is clear that we intend to leave and are leaving, things will change. The insurgency will come to a head, and stand or fall, Iraq will stabilize, foreign fighters will have nothing to fight for because Iraq will be a truly sovereign nation fighting for their own freedom against terrorists, insurgents, criminals, anyone who would attempt to deny the the government of the people their ability to rule their land.

If we allow anyone into this country we check their papers, verify they aren't wanted as criminals or suspects, terrorists, or dangers to society, duh! That's what we aren't doing right now, millions of people are coming in from all directions because, our borders are not borders, they are open and revolving doors with nobody but a guard watches on duty for 10 minutes of the day.

Really, we need to get a hold of illegal immigration and smuggling of people into our country. We need to deport criminals to authorities in the nations they come from. We need to build a wall between the USA and Mexico because Mexico is corrupted and not a willing and able partner in stopping this situation. To the north we need more agents to patrol the border, and monitor who comes in, who leaves, we need to unite with the Canadians because they are in a similar situation, a developed modern country with alliances to the United States. A lot of Canadians don't see themselves as a target to terrorists but they are.

"If we deny we are in danger and decide to go one with normal life. How do we handle a situation if they did attack while we were distracted, ignoring them?"

Nobody is denying the danger, but it shouldn't be overstated, we have a problem in this country with making a war on everything, and allowing the media to feed us fear whether its bullshit or not. Lots of times it is. Lately it's been the cheese bombs which were thought to be an attempt to smuggle C4 lol, before that the flying imams, before that, anthrax, the dc sniper shootings. All of this was tied to terrorism. The first thought when the Columbia shuttle blew up by most Americans was "those fucking terrorists" but really tragic as it was, it was a hole in the shuttle.

People die of terrorism and there are terrorists who would love to destroy the world, but you can't just wish it to happen. Our country and intelligence service has been on this now for a solid decade and progress is being made making the reporting and scope of our knowledge about these bastards more and more accurate. The media is way behind the curve, happily willing to blow anything that happens out of proportion or link it to terror. Sure it's possible something big is going to happen, "Gut feeling" but what does that all mean?

FEAR you cannot defeat it, you can just control it. I think we are finally getting control of our fear realizing what we need to do in the coming years.

A great man said that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Certainly if you are going to fear, at least go with something a little more statistical relevant then terrorism.

When I said "TERRORISTS will both not be impressed or DETERRED. The only way to stop them is to kill them." I meant it because it's true. Nothing we are doing in Iraq is helping us, shape the views of the world looking at us into a positive view. People, not terrorists, see a country that went against the rest of the world invading Iraq, they see us as an aggressor, both there and in Afghanistan, they see a daily barrage of violence from Iraq, Muslims being killed by Muslims. People also see and hear terrorist's using the Koran and Islam for their own perverted agenda on their local news. They read up on it, and what the extremists say about us.

They read from places like this, about Americans and it's hard to understand, for them, how we can be fighting a war just against extremists, and not against Islam. Especially when so many civilians are dying daily in Iraq. Consider they also get news from fewer independent sources and a lot of their news is as biased or more so then our own "journalistic defenders of American freedom" Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC.

I think it would be a different story if we leave, and it is seen that the violence stops, which is possible, or that it continues which is likely but doesn't involve us. That takes away the recruiting tool AQ has right now against us. It also takes away their battlefield, granted it may give them more focus on us at home, but that's a possibility not assured.

It seems like the only war that matters is "The war on Terror in Iraq."

Not really, I care about the war on Capital Hill just as much. Now if you looking for a Civil War, look no further than Congress and the Senate. Talk about hypocrisy when criticizing the dilema between the factions in Iraq when our own politicians can't get along even between their own party. Just look at Hilary and Obama, they should either be put in a UFC ring or sent to Ninja Warrior to decide who's better.

Perhaps you've been under a rock bud but the only concern on the elected people's minds in this country about 50% of the time is how to get reelected. Saying and doing anything to that effect is their goal. Not solving our problems.

I think we should change our system in favor of a single 5 or 6 year term, where nobody gets reelected. With the pace of change in our society 8 years is an eternity, and considering the last few terms about the 6th/7th year of a presidency nothing gets accomplished while they still collect the same wage in Washington I think we could do far better without the constant election cycle we have to put up with every 2 years or so.

Charles I'm curious as to why you haven't had anything to say in rebuttal to my plan for leaving Iraq. Was it not detailed enough for you? Was it not feasible or logical? Did it sound too much like, the "cut and run" bs line of GWB?

Just curious as to what your plan for Iraq is if you have one. Share it.

Hmmm, let me look back and see what you are referring too and I'll get back at you on this.