Sorry, but is anyone going to explain how Obama could have a policy of pulling troops out of Iraq almost a year before the next President will take office?

By any measure, the Bush/Cheney regime and Republican dominated congress has been the most corrupt and lawless governing body in our nation’s history. Who can count the lies they’ve told and the laws they’ve ignored, capriciously redefined and violated during the last six years? Even now with the Democrats in the majority, they continue to subvert the democratic process. Backed by a plutocratic owned media, they terrorize and herd Democrats like sheep by maligning their patriotism and commitment to our troops.
Troops they recycle again and again into battle and treat with utter disdain. When have they ever shown concern and regard for the lives of our troops and their families?

What have we gained by illegally invading Iraq? Our control of Iraqis oilfields is tenuous at best and can only be maintained by an open ended commitment and ever increasing waste of our national wealth to pay for an occupying force surrounded by millions of tribal guerillas intent on slaughtering our troops and each other for control of the oil. That doesn’t seem like a well thought out plan for success.

Not content with the disaster they’ve already created, this junta of war profiteers now seems intent on escalating and provoking wars with Iran and Syria. When will it ever end, and how much will it cost us? Not just in terms of our national wealth, but more importantly, how many more troops are they willing to sacrifice for profits they will never share with the American people. The only trickle down taking place is the drip, drip, drip of our troops’ blood into Iraqi sand.

These are evil men and they should be dealt with according to the Law of the Jungle that they have subjugated us with.

Well stated rabblerowzer! People seem to forget who the bad guy really is. Iraq did not invade the US, we the bad guys invaded THEIR country! They have the responsibility to defend THEIR country and THEIR OIL! THEY are doing THEIR DUTY, why in hell don't we? Our congress has forsaken the people of this country for a few bucks and an easy life for themselves. We are on the brink of a world wide nuclear war, the rest of the world can't just sit back and watch and they won't. WAKE UP AMERICA, it may be your last chance to save your world! Stop the INSANITY!

War is coming sooner than you think. We need to take out Iran because their President is worse than Hitler(where 6 million Jews were killed). Iran's President implied that he may nuke Israel and this is unacceptable to most Jews and people of good will. The United States will bomb Iran and the Democratic party leaders support this. Get use to it. Israel(the only democracy in the middle east) will survive. Iran will not.

"..."I think that will just encourage those who want to completely destabilize and destroy Iraq, and create chaos and a victory for the terrorists to hang on..."
Yeah, right, and WHO completely destabilized and destroyed Iraq...? Ummm, it's called the Koalition (sic) of the Killing. Ummm, 650,000 dead civilians? By my country, Australia, participating in this blood bath, Howard has made ALL Australians War Criminals. Us. The People. Western Civilization, that much vaunted edifice, is shown to be a rotten, hollow thing, we have abandoned principals and now act as Neo-Nazis. Howard, Blair and Bush have dragged us into the anteroom of Hell.

""By my country, Australia, participating in this blood bath, Howard has made ALL Australians War Criminals. Us. The People.""

Is that how it works ?
Well I think we Australians will probably get off the hook. After the entire populations of the US, Germany, Britain, Russia, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, etc are all hanged as war criminals for their host nation's war crimes we will probably get around to revising those Geneva conventions with our lone vote on the UN security panel.

The upside being we'd have solved global warming. Through genocide. For moral purposes. Awesome.

Ari,
You seem to see this as a war between Israel and the other peoples of the ME, with the U.S. doing the dying and fighting for Israel in order to protect it. I see it very differently, I think you are being bamboozled by Bush/Rove/Cheney/Repub rhetoric. They care nothing about Israel or the jewish people, only about oil. They are using a number of excuses to justify their oil war and Israel is one of those excuses. Other excuses and misleading rhetoric include fighting terrorists and WMD etc.I just don't see how Bush and his friends destabilizing the ME into it's present and ever increasing state of chaos does anything to protect Israel, in fact it further jeopardizes Israeli security. Furthermore if the U.S. is further damaged, militarily or politically over this totally illegal conflict then Israel loses it staunchest ally.And will completely jeopardize Israeli security. My understanding is that a majority of Israeli jews are sick and disgusted about these endless wars which accomplish nothing but make arabs/muslims ever more angry and desperate and fearful. Why do you want to do that to your Israel's neighbors in the ME, and they are Israel's neighbors not america's neighbors. If Bush and the repubs keep threatening the ME peoples they may one day completely explode and that is bad for Israel especially and also for america but to a lesser degree. Jews having lived through the horrors of the Holocaust, the worst tragedy ever perpetrated by man aganist man will never be forgotten by me for as long as I live. But the Bush republican perpetration of another holocaust in the ME is equally as bad as what Hitler and the Nazis did in WWII.
Jews everywhere in the world and jews above all else should know the lessons of the Holocaust. What hurts one person hurts all persons and wehat hurts one people hurts all people. That which destroys freedom and security for one group does so for every group so we all must fight against our baser instincts to attack those who do not see everything exactly as we do, or I should say exactly as Bush, the republicans, the oil companies and the evangelical Fundamentalists do. That last group includes my church, the catholic church which is a staunch supporter of the republican party since Reagan became prez. I am deeply ashamed at what the catholic church did during WWII(see Reichskonkordat of 1933)when they endorsed Hitler and the Nazi Party as well as being deeply ashamed by the church's staunch endorsement of the republican party when the pope should be unaligned with the repubs and be protesting it's actions. During WWII the catholic church said almost nothing about the Holocaust or Hitler and his war machine. Please give more thought to your political position. Pray For Peace and demand diplomacy not war, both of the Israeli gov't and the republican oil gov't. And don't fall into the trap of believing their phony rhetoric and spin which are nothing more than lies.

You will see soon enough that with the war with Iran, the Democratic party leadership will support the war. Time will tell who is right on this matter. Just like with the war with Iraq, the Democratic party went along with that. Iraq supported the PLO terrorists and had a large army that threatened Israel with perceived WMD's, Saddam had to go. Iran is next on the list. Then Israel, at last, will be done with its major enemies. Without our support, the Democratic party could not have come to power. We give 60% of the financial support. They will vote for war with Iran, just like they voted for war with Iraq. The only problem with the war with Iraq was that it was mismanaged.

"Coalition of the Willing" beats "Coalition of the Shameful, Gutless, Thoughtless Wonders" any, and every, day of the week. I have never in my adult life been ashamed of my own U.S. Congress until now.

These spineless, lackluster representatives demonstrate IQs only slightly above those who elected them. To say, in the same "Sense of the Congress" resolution that they both support the troops and then go on to denigrate the military mission, the Commander-in-Chief, and the very Generals who devised this planned surge is an oxymoron and an exercise in hypocracy and cowardice. It further demonstrates a complete lack of historical prospective and zero knowledge of tactical warfare. Just the type of intelligence one expects from the product of a combination of government school-indoctrination systems and a constant, incessant stream of far left-wing nonsense along with the daily lies of the main-stream-media - the New York Times right at the top of the list.

Both the main-stream-media and the far-left congress will get their wish: a re-living of the Vietnam War. Just like Vietnam, if this war is lost, it will not be lost by the military nor even the bumbling of the Commander-in-Chief, but by the very same sort of spineless Congress that we had then.

Next these same thoughtless wonders will engage in years of paying to arm our enemies - Just like Jimmy Carter and the Koreans and so-called "Palestinians". They'll engage in "serious dialogue" with those who will not take them seriously, but will milk them for all the money and goods they can get while simultaneously blowing up our Embasies, attacking our troops and ships, and American interests and allies in general.

Again. I am ashamed of the 110th Congress in general and specifically the House of Representatives (so far).

J. Shayne Jones
Dayton, OH

Howard's comments are based on the patently false premise that the war in Iraq has been a bad thing for al Qaeda. The invasion by the US, with a bit of token help from others including Australia, revitalised al Qaeda, giving it a new focus, wonderful PR, hordes of new recruits, and highly valuable training opportunities.
If I were running al Qaeda in Iraq I'd be sending campaign contributions to America's most hawkish Republicans, and feeling disappointed that the 2-term limit would prevent another 4 years of George W. Bush.