Replies

"This is their way of saying thanks? You can't trust arabs or muslims, and this makes that point crystal clear."

It really doesn't matter what they say. If they want us to leave, good riddance. We leave. And in fact, we should leave more quickly than their time table calls for, to keep terrorists off-balance.

We won a lot of hearts and a lot of minds. Being asked to leave and politely going out the door is not cowardice by any means. No matter what happens, our military touched the hearts of millions and millions of people.

If Iraq goes to hell in a handbasket [and I think they will actually break the yoke of Islamic extremism and become Sin City of the Middle East, based on what's in the Book of Revelation], the worse it gets in Iraq in later years, the more they will wish that the US was still there. This may have been their brief, shining moment of Camelot, an ideal for them to aspire to.

No matter what happens, Bush can say, we toppled an evil regime. That's what's most important. The world knows that no tin pot dictator can scare us away with chemical weapons. No enemy of our's feels safe. Side with bin Laden, celebrate 9-11-01, and dare to draw our attention your way AT YOUR PERIL.

Well said. I have not been following this posting. But your statements are well taken. We cannot expect these peoples in all their varied theocratic, ideological, social/political differences to just band together under one theme and go along with what the US may ask of them.
It is totally unwise to assume we can dictact to them. We can only suggest and offer continued help to move forward, and become stable.
Most of the objectives have been meet. The Iraqi's must now as many of us understand, take charge and finalize the final goal, being a freely elected stable government willing to govern all their people under a new constitutional system of laws. And work hard at that final military level (perhaps by the end of 2006) to take full charge of their internal security needs.
How they accomplish this should be their business. Hopefully with the new military in place with many close and now warm ties with us, their government leadership shall be forced to not turn on the US and main coalition forces's desire to partner with them.
As any endevour of this dimension, there are always risks all will not go as planned. It seldom does.