[campbellcj]

In guerilla warfare, by definition, there is no clear distinction between combat troops and non-combatant civilian personnel. When our people are being maimed and killed daily by "improvised explosive devices" and other non-state-sponsored militant efforts, I cannot blame them one iota for potentially taking inappropriate prisoners. When you are in that kind of environment, paranoia = survival as everyone really COULD be out to get you at any moment.

It still just begs the questions that we all seem to be dodging: (a) why did we go there in the first place and (b) why in the hell are we still there? What could possibly happen if we pulled-out that would be worse than the present situation?

I am no scholar of middle-east history, but my guess is that no matter what we do in the next few months or years in Iraq, in a few decades the local political system will re-attain equilibrium in its own way; i.e., new dictatorships, civil wars, genocides, and oil wars will arise. Yawn. Why is this our problem?