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Do you think the U.S. should continue occupying Iraq? Should we start pulling our troops out now, if at all? What do you think?

Most of the LP candidates are doing a "can you top this" on who would bring the most troops home soonest The follies of the campaign trail I suppose.

However at least ideologically I completely agree with them. Not just from Iraq, but from whereever our presence is not truly needed. I mean, like Diego Garcia is probably okay, but we don't need to be in Japan and especially not in Korea, where our presence may actually be holding back peace talks.

Okay keep in mind this IS the debate forum.

!. what purpose is served by staying the course? Do you think victory is actually possible?

2. How do you propose to pay for all of this, when we are already so deeply in debt?

3. Do you genuinely feel that imperialism is superior to trade based neutrality? If not, why do you support the invasion of a sovreign country that (as we know now) that was not harming us (none of the 9/11 plotters were Iraqi, remember.)

4. Do you genuinely feel that al Qaeda can be busted apart?

Arg. My attempt at humor has pulled me into debating. The war in Iraq can be one but the war on terror will be endless due to its ideological basis. While not a supporter of rampant government spending, this war has to be funded properly to ensure victory. The idea of imperialism is ridiculous. If the US truly wanted Iraq as a colony we'd be raping it of its natural resources and seeing that I just paid $3.49 a gallon we're not doing that. I believe we should have the ability to act in defense of our national security and interests. And al Qaeda is basically the real life Cobra organization, minus the silly uniforms and over abundance of snake references. The organization will exist as long as people look at the West and hate what they see. The best we can do for now is to continue attacking their known leadership and keeping them weak enough so they can not orchestrate another terrorist attack.

First of all, thank you for recognizing that war on a concept cannot be won, not truly. You can only win against military units. You can kill a person but you cannot kill the idea that made them that way. In a way, this is the ultimate folly of warfare. Defending one's own land or one's nation is fine. This is protection. waging war on another is something rather different.

Second, funding. You state that the war has to be funded properly. Do you have any idea of specific strategies that would allow this to actually happen? I'm sorry, but in my eyes this war is draining every last drop of American credit already. To heck with the subprime morgate crisis, the subprime American debt crisis threatens to make the mortgage crisis look like a mere market correction. (Not trying to diss those stuck in the crisis-- even though we have 2 30-year fixed loans on our two properties, we are being hurt badly on the one hand by our renters being unable to secure a mortgage because everyone is so nervous right now and on the other by the equity on this property in CA dropping like a stone. We've lost over $100,000 in equity. So I feel the pain)

Imperialism. I see this as being a sort of imperialism. The current Iraqi oil deal may be biased to American interests. And this was not, in my mind, the slightest bit defensive. How do you argue that this was acting in American security or interests?

Al Qaeda, more like a Hydra than a Cobra. The only way to dissipate its influence is to remove the thing that got them all riled up in the first place. We have to get all of our military interests out of every inch of the Islamic Crescent. Then they will look to the West and see that we finally learned the lesson. Every time we actually try to kill it, it gains strength through ideological prowess.

I think the road to withdrawal will need to be one carefully traveled. Not only do we need to pull out our brave men and women, but we also need to help out all the locals that helped us... the translators!

Thing is, how can we help a country that's been in a civil war for the past thousand years?

Ok this ones a pretty one sided issue, we must get out of there as quickly as possible, it seems that every time we seem to make progress the reps are saying how great of progress were making then the dems will reply "Ok, so when can we get out?" oh we arent there yet, in this war we've wasted time (5 years our longest war),money ( I dont even want to think about the money that could have been used on domestic problems in America), and 4400+ lives, it doesnt sound like something we should be in to me....

Ok nondisputed war...my textbooks called it the "Vietnam Police Action" and the "Korean Conflict" besides Iraq isnt a war...its an occupation and ok 8 years, I will admit my mistake, but we will at least admit longer than WWII wont we.
2.dont call me bub
3.I meant on this site not the world, and its getting there wouldnt you say, its not 50-50 anymore
4.NOWHERE DID I SAY I AGREE WITH DEFENSE SPENDING, i think its crap so dont attack me on that.
Now to your point of leaving at once, i slightly agree, but we should have them there longer than 2 years...its time they learned that they need to do things themselves....we can't baby them