I hope none of us are forgetting what happened in New York City on September 11. As I recall, EVERYONE, no matter what political party they belonged to said Lets go over there and take them OUT!! and before we got there--Whats taking Us so long to get over there???

Have we forgotten the anger and pain we all felt then??? That is why we are there. MY son is in Afghanistan, and says the regular people there are so grateful for the military being there helping them. The Afghans provide services for the soldiers near the camps and bases. Our soldiers are helping the economy of these poor countries. Let us not forget how much we truly have. Let us not forget we are fighting over there so there is no fighting in our own country. As spoiled as we are in this country, as many people do not appreciate what we have and the lives and blood that was spilt for us to have this kind of life, let them go overseas and see the conditions our soldiers are living in to serve them. My son says send stuff in small packages so the sand doesn't get in. Send baby wipes so they can clean up. How many of us go days without showers and pray for baby wipes????? What can we to do make people appreciate the service the military is providing for us???? Freedom is not free, it never has been, it never will be, and there never will be a world without conflict. If the Americans who are the loud ones and are complaining so much, did not act and speak so selfishly, maybe so many people in the world would not hate us so, and conspire to rid the world of America. But, as long as there are people in the world who wish to annihilate the Americans, there will be a war. Until there are no more threats to our country, our military will remain fighting for not only our freedoms, but all our lives. There are more deaths to the military due to drinking and car accidents than are deaths overseas. This is something that was stressed to my son before he came home on leave.

There are many things happening to protect us we don't know about, and I think we really don't want to know because we would be too frightened to know about.

Until those countries are strong enough to protect themselves and keep these terrorists from coming into their countries and taking over, as they have been doing, we cannot leave. The lives that have been lost will have been lost for nothing. They would not want us to leave until This area is strong enough to take care of themselves. It's like --If you give someone a fish you feed them for a day, if you teach them to fish you feed them for life. We are teaching and helping them to care for themselves for life, so when we do leave, we will not have to return. When we went in, we knew it would not be for just a short period of time. You do not raise your children in just 1 or 2 years. It is time consuming and frustrating. As much as I want my son home, as much as I want this all over with, I do see the whole picture, and many others need to see the whole picture as well. Lets not be selfish and have tunnel vision. Lets think like our wonderful strong soldiers who are over there and are saying we cannot leave until these people are strong enough to fight for themselves, and become a better society, and have a future.

I'd like to thank our military personnel for being so brave. I think we owe it to them not to send them into dangerous situations in bad faith. There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction. The intelligence was cherry picked and the current administration continues to lie to the American public.

Cindy--would you feel the same if your son would have died over there. My nephew died there and I don't agree with you!

I find it somewhat amusing that we talk about "finishing the job" and "accomplishing what we set out to do" and "not leaving until we've won." But, but-nobody ever explains what it is we actually are there for. We were told a half dozen different reasons for going, all of which turned out to be not only misguided, but just plain wrong. Just wrong. Completely and utterly and totally dead wrong. Now we have people who got all of those predictions wrong predicting day in and day out what's going to happen, and what we need to do. Of course, all they ever say is "stay until the job is finished." It's a never ending cycle of the same talking points that are not based in any reality over and over again. It's time for the discussion to get realistic.

The fact of the matter is that we've lost 4000+ troops now. We are not safer because of Iraq. First we were told it was because Saddam had WMDs. Then that turned out to be bogus. Then it was the Iraq/al-Qa'ida link, which most people who have a basic understanding of the region immediately knew was nonsense. And then it was confirmed it was nonsense. Then it was because Saddam had gassed his own people and we were "now finding" mass graves. The fact of the matter is that they have been there a long time, and certainly well before both Cheney and Rumsfeld were over talking to Saddam and commenting about the great leader he was.

Now the main reason is twofold: We've destroyed the country so vastly it'll cost countless dollars and lives to stabilize; and for the alleged terrorist threat. Of course terrorism has increased since we've invaded Iraq, so I don't see how that argument has any weight whatsoever.

In the end, it's obvious what really needs to be done: a comprehensive plan to get us out of Iraq while lending transitional support to the Iraqi government. It doesn't matter if we stay for a day or a century; whenever we leave it's going to erupt in more violence. You can no more "defeat" terrorism (especially by using fear-how many are genuinely afraid we'll be at risk if we don't continue to spend billions of borrowed dollars killing people, even though that's patently false and absurd?) than you can defeat a hurricane. There will always be something there. Always. Staying indefinitely is not good policy, and it's only doing harm to our safety and standing in the world, not to mention our economy. It's time to get out so there aren't MORE soldiers who die in a battle that should have never started.