I think what a lot of people are upset about concerning our actions are not so much that we took the course we did, many agree with that, but they’re upset with how the war is being fought and managed. In my opinion we should not have slowed down at Operation Shock and Awe. We should have kept it strong, gone in, wiped out the enemy, got political talks going on re-establishing the nation with a new political system, and got out of there. I feel the administration planned excellently for the initial strike to oust Saddam, but then lacked vision on the capability of the enemy, namely, “Al Qaeda in Iraq.” I tend to lean toward the camp that says that the war has been managed in a politically correct manner, where the troops have to step through all these rules and regulations before pulling the trigger, instead of just getting in aggressively, getting the job done, and getting out in the most efficient manner possible. We have instances where some troops are being charged with murder in this war. I find that rather ridiculous. It’s war. If anyone knows anything about history, this has been one of the most successful operations with very few casualties (while not in any way minimizing the casualties that have occurred though). I do feel we are overstaying our visit in many ways, but as with any war from history, there are all kinds of unknown variables that come into play. War is an always-changing environment where you must restrategize every chance you get to always be one step ahead of the enemy. War is what it is though. It’s dirty, brutal, unfortunate, and necessary to maintain peace because of people like Hitler, Stalin, Saddam, Bin Laden, and many others who selfishly seek the demise of either their own citizens or other nations. You can try to manage a war in the most humane way possible by instigating a thousand rules on what’s legit or not, etc, but somebody else wants to kill you and take away your freedom. How do you respond to that? I’m not just going to sit back, put my head in the sand and hope it goes away, because it won’t. Islamo-fascists want all of us dead in fact. If they had their way, the entire world would be converted to Islam. “Convert or die,” so to speak. 9/11 is one of the first giant proofs they want us dead, though there were many even before that. If they get a nuclear weapon, they will use it. From the radical Islamists worldview, they honestly believe they are advancing the cause of Islam by murdering thousands upon thousands of people. If they are crazy enough to kill themselves by flying planes into buildings, who says they wouldn’t go all the way and wipe out entire cities? Who would have thought they would do something as bad as 9/11? Where does it stop though? That’s the point of the rhetorical question. They won’t stop. They’ll just keep coming. That’s the bottom-line. What are we going to do? Let them do it? Iraq is a pivotal nation in the Middle East, and if it can be established as a solid nation economically, politically, and socially, there’s a chance that the entire Islamic region will stabilize and thwart many of Al Qaeda’s plans to impute radical Islam on the entire area, by force as it were. It’s real easy for us Americans to sit back and criticize everything that our leaders are doing wrong when we have no first-hand experience of what it takes to get the job done, nor do we have all the military intelligence and data our government does to make the decisions they have. I do have to say that after 9/11, we haven’t had another attack on our soil. That says a lot about what’s being done for us with this administration, though not everything has been perfect. War takes time. Americans have become so unbelievably impatient with the progress. Our country sure has produced some real whiners. And I’m getting sick of hearing it. 🙂