At what point does fighting in Iraq become too much ?

[KLA2]

KLA2, that analyis assumes the "terrorists" are a cohesive homogeneous group, and they are not. The terrorists are diverse, not one large enitity matching wits and forces with the US. The group that caused 9/11 is not the forces we face in Iraq. For that matter, what we are doing in Afghanistan is looking for their leader/leaders, but plenty of folks over there are not part of that group but still oppose our presence and fight it. The Taliban for example did not plan or cause the 9/11, they just sympathised with those who did and suported them. Much as I would allow an election sign in my front yard without actually running for office.

Agreed. But do not confuse the pawns (or other pieces) with the controlling mind(s) sitting behind the board. Paranoid? Maybe. Cheap shot to defend my analogy? Likely.

[Bill_Thompson]

November was the lowest in casualities in Iraq in the last 4 years.

I just thought I would add that here.

This is thanks to the troop surge.

So let's step back for a moment and compare the troop surge in Iraq to when Clinton cut-and-run out of Mogodishu. On the one hand, the troop surge has brought stability and peace to Iraq. On the other hand, pulling the troops out of Mogodishu encouraged Osama bin Laden and his followers to launch an attack that would knock down a weak USA.

[Enzo]

The sins of one man are not diminished by the sins of another. CLinton has nothing to do with what Bush is doing now. If Clinton was Satan incarnate, it still has nothing to do with whether Bush is right or wrong.

[Bill_Thompson]

The sins of one man are not diminished by the sins of another. CLinton has nothing to do with what Bush is doing now. If Clinton was Satan incarnate, it still has nothing to do with whether Bush is right or wrong.

As true as this statement is, the fact still remains that all of the Democratic candidates stress urgency about getting out of Iraq which is the same sort of policy that Bill Clinton had in Mogadishu. So, instead of looking back, let's look at the here and now and, more importantly, towards the future.

If you will notice, Hillary was all about ending the war in Iraq until she was called to the White House to have a meeting with Bush. He basically told her that "politics are politics and I know you want to say what you feel you need to say to get elected, but if you are president you are going to have to deal with this and you might regret what you are saying now..." and he laid out the facts of what a pull-out meant. He probably showed her that the opposite of what a lot of people think is true. And that is simply that the troop surge has led to peace not a troop reduction or pull-out.

So a parallel can easily be drawn here. And that is what I was doing. Clinton's pull out emboldened our enemies. The passive, liberal view is a failed ideology.

If we don't look back at history, we will never learn.

The liberals thought that Jimmy Carter's passive approach would lead to peace. THey were wrong. The liberals thought that Regan's strong military and aggressive tone would lead to war. They were wrong.

We have to learn from the past.

Hillary has not talked about ending the war in Iraq since her face-to-face with the president. She changed her tone. She changed her view. How about the rest of us?

[Heid the Ba]

while al-Qaeda and the Taliban are fundamentalist Shia.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to call you on this one...

I'm glad you did, I have no idea why I thought that.

[Bill_Thompson]

Since the latest news seems positive, I am not so sure that is accurate.

Why it was stupid to invade Iraq:

• It alienated existing and potential allies. The US went from an all time high in international sympathy to a possibly all time low
• It reinforced the bin-Ladenites believe that America is on a crusade against Islam.
It must have been UBL's wet dream come true. It wasn't 9/11 that made al-Qa'ida what it is today, it was the US lashing out against Islamic nations.
• It also handed them a target rich environment where they could easily blend in with the locals.
• It got an awful lot of people killed, injured, or displaced.
• There was no realistic plan for the political follow-up.
• One does not eliminate a terrorist threat by military means alone. (Ask the Brits or the French.)
• It tied up military and financial resources that would have been a lot more useful elsewhere.
• It made many members of the US public lose trust in their political system.
• It made the Iranians even more paranoid then they already were.

I'm sure that if you really think it through one could come up with some more issues.
It was cowboy politics, unthinking and aggressive, and as usual, counterproductive.
The only good thing that came out of it was that a criminal regime was ended.

How many more to go?

(How does one code for a [TAB]?)

In a very real sense, we were already at a slow and steady war of containment with Iraq. Prior to the invasion we were tasked to patrol The No-Fly Zones in the north and the south and Saddam's forces were shooting at our pilots virtually every day.

Many of the points you make here are incorrect or invalid. I wonder where you get your sources.

Other points are true but they are not material to the issue.

If we had not invaded, as shocking as it may seem, more Iraqis would have died as a result. I remember UNICEF had estimated that hundreds of thousands of kids were not getting the food that was intended to them from the Oil for Food scandal and were dying.

Saddam had been guilty of killing of millions of his people. If we had not invaded when we had the chance, eventually things would have returned to "business as usual" for his regime.

Stressing some facts, while ignoring others is intellectually dishonest.

Anyway, just as the troop surge has lead to peace and stability. The same can be said tof the invasion itself. Continuing the weak war that we were engaged in with Iraq would have gone on and on and in the long run would have been more disastrous.

I think you have been listening too much to the left and the liberal biased propaganda about the war.