I believe that the General's assessment's are truthful and correct. Like Vietnam the US is trying to win the war with politics. Its called war for a reason. Let the generals and troops on the ground overthere fight the war. Politic's aside. We will never be able to win a war again...because of politics. The can kill our women andchildren...but when one of their civilians get hit...it our rear-end.

vietnam was a political war; started by politiciansand we end up losing the war of communism[ actually socialism] and we pay for the damages, and we get all  the refugees. similar objectives here terrorism ,911, sadaam, bin laiden, weapons of mass destructions. tools for the republican party to start a war , inflation, high gas prices, minimum wage jobs only, lower capitol gains tax, get the picture; oh, i forgot ,us soldiers killed by the thousands. what exactly was accomplished; hung sadaam; big deal , as many people dont remember he was an ally of the us. this corrupt regime of terror has to end; im talking about the bush administrationand his evil party. i thoght at one time bush was the anti-christ; but i dismissed that immediately. hes too stupid to get that kind of credit. i also believe that fighting in iraq will have the same effect as vietnam; refugees, money no change in the political situation in thew middle east. the false patriotism by blind soldiers is also a disease caused by the political system. in cambodia only survival was inside me; no patritism, maybe these soldiers should be educated to what politics and war and corruption tie in. 911 was tragic; but thats been going on for2500 years, and nothing has changed for the better . wake up world before the [button] really is pushed. ps, my survival in cambodia was due to hatred for the political system, and purely to survie on my own

War is just another tool of the international relations process - probably an admission of failure of diplomacy, or an impetus to force diplomacy over destruction.  As such, war is always political, in that it tries to enforce the political will of one country over another.

The first few months of Iraqi Freedom were indeed war - we destroyed Iraq's army and overthrew Saddam Hussein.  I'm not here to argue over the wisdom of that move.  History will bear out the truth.  Once we completed that action, we changed to an enforcement mission to insure the security of the country until it can stand on its own...again, a political goal.  What has always concerned me about that goal is that we were and seem to remain convinced that that our goal of making Iraq "free for democracy" (a recurring theme for us) is achievable if we "stay the course" as G.W. is so wont to say.  I, for one, am not convinced.  We can probably restrain other influential countries from making much of a mark in the near term, but when we leave, and we eventually will, the rest of the mid-East will become the dominant political and religious force there.  We can only hope that our long presence has not so soured the population that we are seen as occupiers, not friends.  If the former, our efforts will have been no better than those in Viet Nam.

carl ,you seem like a very intelligent man with a republican flavor. good for you' more people brainwashing the nieve public.  sadaam should never been a motive for war; bush is a total failure and his regime inadequate to get bin laiden ; the man and his predecessors has been doing terrorism for 2500 years ; you think he was going to wait for our forces ,sitting in a cafe in afghanistan; only the republican party is so arrogant to make the public believe this. your point of politics is well, taken, but not legitamate or right for the american people . check your history , we are occupiers,with monetary reasons; the republican regimes the last 50 years reeks of it . lets hope we can take care of our own peoples problems; the interior is breaking down, the exterior misused and devious to the needs of the people. this demise of our nation resembles the fall of the roman empire; fat and divided on the inside' rogueish and slfish on the exterior. bring in a new regime[democrart before we perish

jon,  indeed, the history of mankind is one war after another, sometimes motivated by altruism, but usually for economic reasons.  I agree that G.W. is one of the most mediocre presidents we have seen in a century.  Were it not for 9/11, he would have been easily defeated in 2004, or so I think.

Sadly, the rights and attendant freedoms we take for granted also allow greed and corruption to flourish.  While many of our national actions are professed as dedicated to higher principles, it's often easy to see through them to the real purposes.  Iraq's stability is key to maintaining a stable Middle East and the oil it produces.  The flow of that oil affects many industries here and abroad, and the flow of those economies.  Why we thought removing Saddam would bring greater stability is beyond my simple reasoning, but it would certainly explain why we haven't invaded Sudan, where the humanitarian issues are far worse than Iraq at the height of Saddam Hussein's power.

My politics are more independent than Republican.  I don't think that, in their currents states of disarray, either party holds a promising future for the U.S.

Jon...if Bush was a total failure then we would have had more attacks on US soil. He had coffee in the Anbar province last week on the way to Austrailia. Democrats...we had far more collateral damage under the Dems with the bombing of the World Trade Center, the U.S. COle, the Kenya Embassy, and others. BUsh decided that enough was enough and took the fight to them.

"Them" are radical Islamist which are the main cause, not the only one, of the violence in Iraq.

When President Monroe invented the Monroe doctrine about the western hemisphere, his counterparts of the day thought he was off his rocker because he inovated foriegn policy at that time. Check back in 35-50 years to see how history views the  Bush doctrine. In the mean time.....pay attention because if the Dems win any more liberty for me...you can kiss your ass goodbye when the next airplane hits Syracuse. Maybe some shoelace bombers that get by on civil liberties???

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