Thanks, that made no sense before that explanation.

So when you say we should have a draft, are you being sarcastic or serious? Do you propose that because you think it would hasten our exit from Iraq or because you truly believe if we double troop levels it will hasten some semblance of peace in the area?

Good point about job descriptions Rearden

Todd, the radicals are well educated, upper-middle class types. Do I win a cookie?

Half a cookie. Not all are upper-middle class and well educated.

What is also interesting is who is doing what types of attacks in what areas. Quite telling data about how to possibly deal with the problem besides, "get 'em!"

What's your proposal?

Whatever it is, I don't think it's going to work.

We could withdraw all US presence completely from the middle east. Move Israel to Catalina and give up that land. Install foot washers at every U.S. airport.

But they're still comin' after the west.

Love your optimism and positive outlook, but the pin has been pulled on this one, and can't be stuck back.

can't really talk about it...I'd have to kill you :p

I'm not optimistic. Just realistic. The region is tribal and can only be "controlled" by a local iron fist. We cannot sustain the force needed to do it. Ever. So we should get out and look for other angles.

Can't really disagree with you if your talking about Iraq specifically. If the plan is to keep sending our people over there and fighting until a democracy takes hold . . . well, that's not foreign policy, that's fantasy. The idea that all we had to do was take out Saddam, send some guys over to help write a constitution, and then hand it over to the fledging Mohammed "George" Washingtons to take over from there was ridiculous.

I was talking about the Islam problem globally and generally.

John Kerry's talking points from 2004. I'm surprised you didn't use the term "outsource" too. Why would we "let" him get away? Shirley, you can't be serious.

First of all, I'm not Shirley.... :D

We "let" him get away by depending on the Afghans to actually do the capture. Whether he bought his way out or they just let him go is really irrelevant.
Unfortunately I can't recall where the article was written but the CIA operative who was one of those in charge of the Tora Bora operation stated that he did not trust the Afghans and before the final assault began he asked for some number (around 800 IIRC) of US rangers, delta types, etc. be rushed in to supplement the Afghans. He never received a response, the final assualt began, Osama escaped and the rest is history. There were actually very few US ground troops involved in the Tora Bora assault.

There is no guarantee the extra US troops would have prevented his escape . The point is, any chance we had to capture or kill him was lost.

Draft? Dead serious. No one owns this war. Bush comes out to the podium over and over and over to scare the bejeezus out of us, and then says go about your lives as though no threat exists. he also leaves the borders and ports open as though no threat exists, but I digress.

To win in Iraq and Afghanistan we need a draft. We need hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the area to seal off borders, stop the flow of arms and terrorists into critical areas and root out and destroy terrorists and insurgents alike. We need 200 special ops teams to infiltrate and destroy camps and training grounds in any country we find them. We need to invest in regions to get people working. We need to get electricity and water running more than 3 hours a day within 3 months of starting the project.

we need a real energy policy that encourages high tech, puts people to work, and weans us off of foreign oil. Say we need an entire new infrastructure for fuel cell fill-up? Fine, that's 30,000 new, good payijng jobs putting that together. it's 50,000 jobs just developing it and then maintaining it, to say nothing of improving it. If I were in Government, I'd mandate that the entire system be designed and built using only U.S. labor and manufacturing.

yes, we need a draft because we need to remove the threat in the near term to forge a long term vision for this country.

I am always amazed by the "new infrastructure" argument concerning alternative energies. The massive development and investment required of our power, phone and fiber-optic grids was astounding. Local investments in sewage treatment, water and roads is equally impressive.

I think the main difference between our willingness to embrace the above and the lack of movement towards any alternative energy plan is that the above were additive to our lives, a desired improvement that could be understood and measured by all.

That and the current system is still relatively cheap and amazingly convenient.

I am afraid that widespread acceptance of and investment in alternative energy policies won't happen until there are shortages.

The infrastructure argument is a straw hat on a straw dog.