very simply - the situation is a mess in common parlance. What needs to be added to the equation beyond troop maintenance and/or graduated withdrawl is what is going to be done in the greater scheme of simultaneously creating "meaningful" study of the emmergence and spread of terroism in the middle east and beyond. The glaring fact that the issue needs all serious academic, international, inter-regional, non-politicized investment at a truly significant scale is at least 7 years late. Yes, homeland security is important. Yes, moral responsibility for the still unsettled state and the greater threads of terrorist activity is imperative. BUT TO STOP THE SLOW BLEED OF THE US AND FURTHER DEATH AND DESTRUCTION ENDLESS CONTINUING, a higer level of international approach has to be found OTHER THAN US MILITARY BASING THERE - iow a genius sos - that is the most significant variable re. the three, I believe.

None are entirely right for the job but of the choices McCain is the best equipped. Obama has no clue what to do and will just turn tail and run like Vietnam all over again! Has the man even stepped foot over there to console our troops. I think not. McCain has a better knowledge of these things and he also will have all the backing of the existing military heads of command. That is something that allot of people haven't considered. Especially when it comes to Obama who would need to prove himself with the military leadership (not likely) before they would trust his decisions!

I assume that you are assuming that if McCain becomes president, he would use his military experience to shape his views on what to do with Iraq. Minus the fact that I think votting for the war shows his strategic incompetence, if he does apply his experience, it will be a disaster.

He is a naval BOMBER. Meaning he is a conventional fighter, period. We are fighting an unconventional war. We can't use Iwo Jima here. We can't even define our enemy and they don't even have a uniform! Obama wants to withdraw from Iraq and finnish the battle againist where Bin Laden really is. It is like skipping over Japanese occupied Manchuria and going straight for Japan. And guess what? Manchuria returned to China and we won! There is no bomb here, here, and here solution!

If our troops learned that they will receive no pay and no benefits or even decent equipment, do you honestly think we will have a very efficent military? No. We won't. So we have to do the equivalent of that to the terrorist. They are fueled by a closed minded and desperate outloook and a very strong justifiable hatred of America. Forgive me if I am wrong, even if people still die, the Peace Corps are much better prepared to battle that kind of motivation, not the 3rd Marines.

Diplomacy first, war as a last resort.

Grassroot bottom up, not top bottom.

I think Obama understands this the most. And the fact that the only Iraq War veteran congressman endorse s Obama reinforce that belief. That said, I will sit down and watch in amusement as he tries to figure out what to do with that package of futuristic weapons the army wants.

"Obama has no clue and will just turn tail and run like Vietnam all over again".
What does it mean to "win" in Iraq? Do you understand what happened when we left Vietnam, peace ... the war continued until we left ... no more fighting. Now Vietnam is a tourist destination. Bring the wife and kids to beautiful Vietnam and believe me, it is a beautiful country.

I was in Vietnam in 1969 bringing supplies to the troops. The average Vietnam population didn't want us there, our soldiers didn't want to be there, Johnson and the power behind him wanted us there.

We lost 60,000 men and women. They (Vietnam) lost over a million ... for what ...
American Imperialism and it is still going on. This time the country is Iraq. I don't understand "turn tail and run", they didn't attack us. Saddam never had WMD. It was all a lie so we could try to dominate the oil supply. GW Bush made a comment "all of our oil is under their land".

If it was about Bin Ladin why didn't we go after him. Because it's about Big oil, Halliburton and the rest of GW's buddies.

Just my thoughts,

JC in SC

Neither. We pull all the troops back to the borders and saturate the borders with arial survelliance. Then tell all Iraq's neighbors in the region, if you come into Iraq, you come through these specific checkpoints or you will be destroyed, period. Then we let Iraq solve it's own civil war without any outside weapons or influence coming in.
Iraq has a 78 billion dollar surplus, we should not be paying for anything any longer, they should be footing the bill and reimburse us for at least some of the money we have spent.

John McCain has the best plan for Iraq. He has experience in Washington, which isn't always a bad thing. Obama will be busy setting up people for his job and figuring out Washington, all the while pulling out troops in some haphazard effort.

It's not the person but the people in the background .The two candidates are nothing more than faces ,talking heads if you will , for the machine . All campaign promises are are block holes that can never be realized without the votes and the support of people already in power .so whoever you vote for don't vote the person vote for what the party would do . To me we've experienced 30 years of deregulation in the name of MORE competition and trickle down economics . So in '08 we have 4 or 5 airlines ,wall mart 6 or 8 trucking companies a few big banks ,Birkshire Hathaway for insurance ,we are in debt to the world for this war and we really think that the middle class has a voice?
But who caused the financial crisis ..the middle class .Sell 'em a mortgage they can't afford OK ! There are no regulations to keep us from bambooziling the uninformed rubes of the middle class . We'll get rich and then wecan really support the troops by putting stickers on our suv's AND i really did sacrifice for my country .Keep it up , give the party in power 4 more years to CHANGE things . I don't think so .
One more thought isn't Obama as much white as he is black ? Dunno . Not in the media .

There is no question that McCain, because of his age and his military background can ONLY see world politics through a 20th Century prism--as Bush & Cheney and those before them. That is, they see the U.S. as having to influence and manipulate the world through might and military intervention. It is quite obvious from Barack Obama's rhetoric that he sees the 21st century global politics in all it's complexity. After all, we were attacked 9/11 by a guy in a cave. Whether the Bush/Cheney war in Iraq was a purely cynical and greedy war to obtain oil (which has failed miserably), or a misguided ideological war--the fact that we are in it militarily means that John McCain knows only ONE WAY to proceed--and that is with the same mission the Vietnam War was envisioned. We lost there; we are losing again. The writing is on the wall. The ONLY person who can extract us from Iraq AND improve our profile in the world is Barack Obama. He understands that diplomacy can and does work. After all, it was a form of diplomacy that prevented us from going to war with the Soviets during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Our president has to have a giant intellect coupled with reasoned judgment to comprehend global politics and economics. Clearly John McCain and Sarah Palin(!)are not in that category. John McCain showed very poor judgment in selecting someone like Palin, unless he thinks he's going to live forever. I think it was a very cynical and selfish choice--basically saying "Screw you" to the electorate. He wanted to avoid a VP with powers of Dick Cheney--well he went way further than he needed to go.

Obama

i think mcCain has the beat plan.