Slap in the face--
 

to our troops whatever political views are held on the war.

After years of front page news of our problems in Iraq the Associated Press

had an article in today's paper on PAGE 11 stating we have essentially won the war and our troop's focus will change.

PAGE 11, :mad: After all the sacrifices and great job done by our young troops.

Sad truly sad. :(

Yes it is sad.

And while things have changed for the better (surge, 20/20 hindsight and all :tm:), "victory" is no longer elusive or unlikely in Iraq but probable. Unfortunately the "end state" won't be what it was once (unrealistically) hoped for but it could be a worthy end-state for the middle east.

Dave, the media has moved on to other things. Iraq is no longer sexy, it doesn't sell much. Any positive news there does not rate well compared to other issues.

drones
 

there should be lots of them
flying over the mountains
of Afghanistan 24/7
with some of brightest
joy stick operators
manning the controls

i hope that's sexy enough
for the papers

Yeah it's sad but was is even sadder is that all those young soldiers died for something that was not necesary. It made us no safer. The real threat lies in the mountains of the Afghan/Pakastani border since 9/11/2001.

That's where we should have been. Our absence in major force numbers have allowed the Taliban to regroup and strengthen and Al Qaida still operates, weakened a bit, maybe but there are new recruits willing to martyr themselves for Jihad in the name of Allah in radical Islamic principals.

Saddam could have been dealt with in other ways. As long as he was in power there was a moderate level of stability. He could have easily been "persuaded" to alter his behavior until we finished with AlQaida by threat of cruise missles and airstrikes.

Then the world courts could have marshalled thier forces to bring him into the halls of justice. He offered oil to Bush just before the invasion at pennys a barrel and was willing to make other concessions in order to keep his office.

Every other middle east govt was afraid of him, that kept stability. We could have bled him dry for cooperation in seeking out AlQiada to save his own preciuos neck.

We missed a giant oportunity for a coup there. The Saudis and Paskitan are not our friends, it's just business to them, nothing more.

it's too bad that George W had an axe to grind!

the minute we pull out... (i predict)

it'll just start all over again.:fury: