Bgates, thank you for your thoughtful, rational, fact filled posts. Many posters here do not like Bush and do not like our policy but have nothing substantive to say when pressed. They respond by mocking Bush with anecdotes about public gaffs and college grades. Personal attacks on him are their only weapon, as they cannot offer any solutions. The Middle East is a hotbed of problems and has been for a very long time (long before GW came into office). PS thinks we can reason with terrorists and make them our friends. That is her solution, which is pure folly and betrays her lack of understanding of what makes radical Islam tick.
Throwing up our hands and quitting is not the solution. I am not sure that everything we have done was the right course, but being weak now in the face of difficulty gives them more power and hope that they can outlast us.
If we could go back and change what we have done in the last five years, would our present be any better or more secure? I doubt it. The Iraq war did not create the problem. Some will say that it exacerbated it, but I take issue with that. We have not had any major terrorist bombings (etc) here by outside extremists since 9/11. They are engaged elsewhere. This issue is long standing, extremely complex and a real and ongoing threat to the safety of our nation and citizens. Yet so many people want to quit, give up because it is hard. Then, when we have been hit by another 9/11, those very same quitters will be the first to point fingers and demand, “Why didn’t we do something!”
