McCain would have us stay in a German-Japan kind of way, Clinton will withdraw the troops in a careful and well-thought out way and Obama...I am worried that he will pull the troops out immediately without a careful plan.

War is of utmost importance to the State. It must be studied.

No country has ever benefited from a protracted war

--Sun Tzu, the Art of War (a long time ago B.C.E.)

I agree with McCain in that if Iraq was a quiet place, most Americans would not mind keeping 30,000-50,000 troops stashed there indefinitely. The problem is that keeping the peace and quiet between Sunni, Shia, Kurd, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other actors is not up to us.

Back in World War II, the Germans surrended because the Allies beat the crap out of them, and bombed their cities into dust. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died to make that happen. Despite losing their Pacific empire, having Toyko fire-bombed and atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Japanese only surrendered because the Emperor ordered them to. The U.S. Marines had 3,000 dead on the first day of the Iwo Jima invasion. The U.S. casualty estimate for the invasion of the Japanese home island in 1945 is truly horrific.

Nothing I've read makes it sound like the warring factions in Iraq are ready to surrender. Instead, we're arming the tribal Sunnis and Kurdish seperatists are fighting against Turkey. That's why I think McCain's premise is B.S. If the Iraqis want to fight, they'll fight with us in the middle. Hillary always says she has a plan, but no plan survives contact with the enemy. I'm uncertain that she understands that and that worries me a lot. Maybe this primary election will teach her that. Personally, I don't think Obama will yank out the troops willy-nilly. He'll collaborate and build a consensus and nobody will like it. Biden's confederation, like what we had prior to 1789, is as good a plan as any. It's easy to shoot holes in it.

All of the above is why I think the penalty for making a bad call on going to war should be really, really high, and not glossed away.

Still another question is why Sen. Obama has not used his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee responsible for NATO and Europe to hold oversight hearings or to advocate for increased diplomacy and military action in Afghanistan. I am not alone in wondering about Sen. Obama's ability or willingness to change course on our disastrous policies in that region.

NATO's invovlement with Afghanistan isn't under the jurisdiction of Obama's sub-committee, that's under the full Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Biden I believe. So it's true he hasn't held any meetings, but that has nothing to do with Afghanistan.

I disagree with your stated reasons about who is best to get us out of Iraq in the least damaging way, and I obviously think Obama would do well as President and C-in-C. If you have a gut feeling otherwise though, that's fine. You have more directly at stake than most of us Americans.

You're criticizing Obama for saying that the Independents and Republicans he's attracting may not support Hillary (sounds obvious to me) but "her supporters are not lemmings for the democratic party ".

Do you align yourself with the Democratic party because it's chic, or because you believe in the policies?

Meanwhile Hillary was just on the Daily Show. She's going to support the nominee. No matter who it is. John McCain is doing a real good job of tacking to the far-right.

Will you support the Democratic Nominee?

AKA Smith, [....] and many other Clinton supporters have not said anything like this, to my recollection (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

I've had a few conversations with AKA Smith (you could probably dig them up) and we both agree we should support the nominee. Even though it's getting a little ugly in here.

And while his record is not empty, it does not contain a single instance of him doing what he claims to be capable of doing.

So you don't think much of Obama's legislation to video tape police interregations, or track racial profiling by police officers in Illinois?

My understanding is that the video tape legislation was not easy to pass.

And you don't think much of the loose nuke legislation with Lugar or the earmark transparency legislation either in the Senate?

I've long faulted the Clinton Administration because they never did enough to secure all that loose nuclear material (weapons and otherwise) from the former soviet bloc counteries. It would have been a lot easier in the 90's. Now with seven years of BushCo and the re-emergence of Russia, it's going to be a lot harder. That's realpolitik for you.

@ Dawggone

"...when he says "You are the people we've been waiting for." you intend to explain what to do now that you've arrived."

Vote for him?

And then hold his feet to the fire, as well as all the other mofo politicians in D.C.

The Hillary position, in contrast, seems to be "I'm the Fighter. I'll fight fight fight". You can stay at home in a consumeristic stupor and watch T.V."

O.K., that was a bit snarky. But I don't understand the criticism of Obama trying to get people fired-up into a movement. It is going to take a movement to get things changed in this country. What a lot of y'all seem to think is superficial, demagogic or cultish, I see as essential.

I don't see white knight Hillary|Obama getting it done on their own.