Two US Soliders possibly abducted

[PennSkinsFan]

May we are having more people killed, injured, etc...in Post War Iraq than during the actual invasion. Then we have GOP Senators, Like Chairman Richard Luger saing we will be there for at least Five years! I hate to tell ya, but we are getting into a quagmire that we are going to find it hard to get out of. I think we really under-estimated post war Iraq and what we anticipated woudl happen. It is pretty clear now that we wnt in quickly, but alot of planning was left our according to many Senators on both sides of the aisle.

[Spence]

It's a tough situation for our soldiers to be in and I sympathize with them. (Same goes for the Brits.) They're soldiers, not cops. The country needs cops and development officers, but all it has are soldiers right now. It's not their fault and people should remember that. The soldiers we have in Bosnia and Kosovo right now have been trained for police actions and they have thousands of troops from other countries to help them. Our troops in Iraq are alone in the Sunni section and they are not trained for this mission. They were trained for the mission they did so well: conquering Iraq.

Some ugly things are happening in Iraq and it will probably get worse. It is important to remember that our soldiers are not to blame for this situation. They didn't make it happen and they're doing the best they can in a bad situation. The Brits are doing the same.

[TexSkin]

I pray for them all. I am a Rebuplican but I also agree that post war plans were extremely shortsighted.

[Spence]

This story (http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030707&s=trb070703) has some pretty good insights on what is going on in Iraq for our troops right now. By the way, this is from The New Republic, a magazine that supported the Iraq War. Actually, they've been demanding war with Saddam Hussein since the end of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. Read on if you are interested...

In the last couple of weeks, Americans have learned something about our troops in Iraq: They hate it there. They are hot, tired, and surrounded by a population they don't understand who occasionally tries to kill them. The left isn't demanding that the United States "come home," because, while it abhors war, it likes nation-building. But the homesick men and women of the military may prove a far more compelling lobby--and the more the public focuses on their plight, the more pressure the United States will feel to cut and run before it has planted the seeds of liberal government in Iraq.

Why are American GIs so unhappy? Partly, because no one likes being shot at far from home. But that's not the whole story. American troops are also paying the price for the Bush administration's dysfunctional approach to peacekeeping. Since they took office, the Bushies have been declaring their opposition to U.S. peacekeeping. And, since last fall, they have been declaring their opposition to long-term U.S. peacekeeping in Iraq. Yet, eleven weeks after Saddam Hussein's fall, well over 100,000 American troops are hunkering down for a peacekeeping mission with no end in sight. "My guys question why we are going from warriors to peacekeepers, because the belief in what was told to us was that we would fight and win and go home," Sergeant Eric Wright told the Associated Press last week. "I don't know why they're keeping us around here," Corporal Anthony Arteaga told The Washington Post. "We're not peacekeepers. We're heavy-combat engineers."

[Skinzaholic]

I feel for them... and yet Im not sure what the answer to the dilemma is.

[TexSkin]

They should have alreayd had an interm Goverment in place right after the War. They should have planned for it and also planned for a Polcie Force. I think they thought the War would go on longer then it id. Thats the only reasoning I can think for this debacle.

[Spence]

I know I mentioned it several times already, but I just want to reiterate that people should not hold our troops responsible for this. They obey the orders of the civilian leadership. It's a hellacious situation they are in right now. It would test the strongest and most patient of us. They deserve our unwavering support. If you've got a beef about this situation you should take it out on the people who make these decisions, not the people who have to live with them.