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Deadzone, would you be so quick to send your wife to walk the streets of Syria or Iran? Have you ever been there yourself? How safe would you feel?
I have been out of the country many times. Sling insults at me all you want. Iran and Syria are not our friends and they aren’t friendly to Americans.

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So the enemy of your enemy is your friend, zk? Those some citizens you respect so much would love to vaporize you, your family and your friends.
I’m no friend of Syria or Iran.

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Perry, although you like to think your beloved democrats have no power or say, Bush does not have the powers of a dictator. The way this war has been fought has been determined by public sentiment to a significant degree. All that anti-US reporting and the quick rush to condemn any collateral damage severely impacted how we fought and how we are fighting.

Once again, Perry, you avoid the real meat of the matter (what should we do now) and point fingers. Quit whining and produce a solution.

We need to protect and nurture our own country ahead of all others.

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Hmm, lets see…. Does that include everybody who voted for it?

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Whether or not we should have invaded is now moot. We are there. Since we don’t have a time machine, we need to be looking forward. What should we do now?

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I doubt the editorial had much to do with the resignation. Have you forgotten the election yesterday?

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First, let us not all forget that 9-11 happened. Further, militant Islamic groups hate us, are going to continue to hate us and are going to continue to try to hurt us. This is going to happen NO MATTER WHAT WE DO.

So here is an incomplete of things we could do going forward:
1) Cut and run with our tail between our legs (proposed as a brilliant solution by many on this board).
2) Stay the course.
3) Split Iraq into three areas based on religious majorities with their own governments.
4) Increase our military presence, throw out the incredibly restrictive rules governing military engagements and crack down really, really hard. This may include kicking the s**t out of Syria and Iran.

If we cut and run, does anybody really think the terrorists are going to decide to leave us alone? I think they will be emboldened even further. We end up looking weak and unable to strike back effectively.

Staying the course does not seem to be working but at least we are doing something rather than sitting back, picking our nose and waiting for them to hit us again.

Splitting the country will probably result in civil war and an increase in Iran’s influence in the region.

If we approached the crack down with the intent to WIN and without trying to make it look pretty for the press and the bleeding hearts here, we just might stop them from hitting us here again. Of course, they will hate even more but the underlying goal is to stop their ABILITY to get to us.

We need to do something to stop them. I believe that the detonation of a nuclear weapon in the United States is coming. We have to pull out the stops. Cutting and running accomplishes NOTHING in this goal.

As for the cost, it is certainly huge. We should be sucking every ounce of oil out Iraq and using it to pay for the war (that is going to cause some outraged squeals). This is what almost all occupying countries have done in the history of the world. They take what they have conquered and add it to their own treasuries. Rome ran on the money of the conquered.

However, we are too “nice” to do what needs to be done.

I invite all those who want us to cut and run to give a prediction as to what they will think will happen if we follow that course.
Does anyone have an alternate course of action that they would like to put forward?

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There are going to be a lot of lenders who do not follow the guidance.

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I use Artprice. The last time I used it, you had to pay a dollar per artist. Then you had access to information about the kind of work (oil, watercolor), size, estimate, sale price (not always) and sometimes there is picture. You can put names on a list and they will email you when items are about to auctioned by that artist (this is free).

Mydogs, I have a French pastel from about 1885 that really seems to be in the the style of J.S. Sargent. I need to have someone look at it. Where should I take it? Thanks!

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5:30 is fine. I’m going to try to be there.

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I really don’t think cancelling a deal that the other side was not and never intended to keep is a bad thing.
Clinton collected a big bag of empty promises from N. Korea. He certainly looks successful, holding all that fools gold.
Sure, North Korea temporarily halted their plutonium program. At the same time they became involved in a secret uranium project with the AG Kahn network. Nice bait and switch behind Clinton’s back (or more likely, right in front of his nose).

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Thank you for your honest response, deadzone.

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Concho, there are people on this board who have experience serving in the armed forces who would love to disagree with me. Deadzone, are we currently going full force? Pulling out all the stops? Is it possible for us to be harder or harsher (I am not asking you, deadzone, if you agree that this is the right action, only whether it is possible)?

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I used this example because it happened to be in the linked article. The point is that are soldiers must hold back in these instances as well as many others.

Are you so up to speed on our policy, then? Have you been going door to door in Iraq? Do you know anything about the R.O.E? Do you know what that means (if you don’t, I’m sure you can look it up on the internet)?

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Nice sarcasm, concho. Was it supposed to be persuasive in some way?

Within the above article was the following:

Anytime an American fires a weapon there has to be an investigation into why there was an escalation of force. That wouldn't have stopped us from firing, but it prevents us from just firing indiscriminately. We have to have positively identified targets. That is why I am now a big fan of having the Iraqis with us. They can fire at whatever the hell they want, we call it the "Iraqi Death Blossom." These guys receive one shot and the whole unit fires at everything in sight until the attached American unit gets them to control their fire. That's fine with me.

This is an example of how our soldiers’ hands are tied due to policy. This has nothing to do with ability or available firepower.

Good explaination JES.

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