Sorry John but you seemed to have slipped a few gears in your history of post 9-11.

Remember that we 1st went into Afghanistan to capture Bin Laden. In deed we TRIED to get the presumed mastermind of the attacks 1st. That didn suceed and still hasn't which eats at me to this day, but ..

Then after 11 yrs of Saddam Hussiens thumbing his nose at the very sanctions that he'd agreed to as part of the cessation of aggression in the 1st Gulf war, coupled with the inability of the UN to have any impact on the continued "Fuck You"s he kept throwing out, we warned him repeatedly that we'd attack if he didn't cooperate.

Then, after he'd already reached the end of the opportunities TO cooperate with the UN inspections, we did as we said we'd do and attacked Iraq in an effort to displace him as the offending head of the food chain there.

Now then, in both situations, failure to satisfy the intended goals have pretty well been realized, except of course that we did actually manage to capture Saddam.

I've beaten on this very tired horse for so long and there seems no graceful end in sight for the US in all this.

My suggestion is to as gracefully as possible withdraw ALL our troops from around the globe and let the rest of the planet kill each other at will!

It's what so many different factions all over the globe seem so wanting to do, so why keep standing in their way ? Let 'em all wage war and kill everyone they care to, there'll damned sure be no loss felt here in my home from them having done so!

We have more than enough issues of our own here at home that could certainly use tending to and I'd MUCH rather see our tax $$s workin within our borders than at points all across the world where we're despised and hated anyway !

I wish there was some real hope that an American candidate for president could rise to the office on a platform like this, but sadly I know too that it will never happen :>