I think it's unfair to blame Bush for the rules of engagement. Clearly the army hasn't passionately demonstrated aainst those rules and when I say the army I mean the people at the top not the soldiers who are in Iraq. There are rules of engagement for every country in the coalition, so perhaps Bush is under pressure from those countries to maintain the rules of engagement. They should of course be scrapped, because terrorists don't have those rules. It's not always possible to beat evil by being good.

I accept your point about not blaming Bush completely on the rules of engagement issue, but it seems to me that as president he could be putting a lot more pressure on the generals to engage to win rather than appease.

Rules of engagement??? Are you serious? This is not a "war" this is a bloody 700 year old civil war which we unleashed when we did not have a "plan" for the peace. The arrogance of righteousness and the ignorance of history got us where we are today. If history bears any understanding, ask the brits about their 30 year war with the IRA. (Labeled "terrorists") The might of Britain was not able to defeat a rag-tag group of men and women. There was no surrender yet peace has finally come to Northern Ireland. What then of us? What is our "win?" When will we know if we have won? Terrorism can be controlled, it can never be defeated. This is simple fact and not defeatism. What we need is leadership without agendas. Because the leaders we have now, are a disgrace and a danger to this Republic.

While I have respect for Paul's point of view, I couldn't disagree more. It is naive not to recognize that we are indeed at war with radical Islam, and regardless of whether one agrees or disagrees with our reason(s) for being in Iraq, it has become, as was Afghanistan, central to the war against the jihadists who seek to establish Iraq as a base for further exportation of their radical ideology and acts of terrorism. Furthermore, comparing radical Islam's ideology and goals to the conflict in Northern Ireland and the IRA, betrays a complete disregard of the facts and the realities involved in the ideology and culture of the jihadists - it's as ridiculous as comparing apples to shoes.

After living and working in the Middle East and Europe for 25 years, and dealing with the Arab-Islamic and non-Arab Islamic cultures, if there is anything I learned that I consider an absolute - it's that victimhood is almost synonymous with their society, and the terrorism we are seeing from the jihadists, began long before the U.S. went into Iraq and that it has absolutely nothing, in reality, to do with U.S. policies in the ME.

As for not being able to defeat terrorism, that's simply wrong, at least in my opinion.

BTW, regarding the comments about the need for leadership without agendas and the current leadership being a disgrace, I sense a bit of blindness to the realities of war and international affairs. Our current problems have evolved over several administrations, beginning at least with the Carter administration. To confine one's assessment of responsibility for the present difficulties around the world with Islamism to one administration, as well as the changing conditions on the ground in Iraq and our need to respond accordingly, all of which has been to some degree cumulative in the progression to developments we see today, is again - naive, and betrays a prejudice for a particular political agenda of it's own. This is not to say its good or bad, right or wrong, but nonetheless, an agenda.

And finally, in so far as what's going on in Iraq being something as simple as a civil war, that's a far too simplistic view of the complex intra-ideological, intra-regional, and inter-tribal struggles going on there. Further, to imply that Iraq is somehow not a part of the Arab-Muslim and non-Arab Muslim (Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, etc..) competition for being the defender of Islamism and therefore not crucial to winning, yes winning, the war against Islamism - and it's believe and objective of forced Islamization of state and society, is again to ignore the realities of what's really going on in the entire region of the Middle East.