Utter the following four words, "the war in Iraq," and watch the comments fly. You will hear such things as, "Bush is a liar!" and "Where are the WMDs?" You will also here such things as, "God bless America," and "Support the war or support Saddam!" What you will hear the most I think is, "What is going on." and "Is there an end in sight?" I fall in the last category. I did not believe that a pre-emptive war was the right thing to do. It went against all that our country has stood for since its inception and against the generally accepted rules of war. I also feared that a war in Iraq would take away resources, troops, and most importantly, the focus on the more important war, the war on terror. In this belief, I have been proven right, unfortunately. Having said that, I also believe that it is in the past and the war in Iraq is here and we have to deal with the here and now. I wholeheartedly support our troops, and want what is best for them and us and the Iraqis. I am pleased that Saddam is gone and that the Iraqis have the beginnings of freedom. Now, we have to finish the job. The problem is defining what the job actually is. I have a hard time with notion of bringing democracy to the Middle-East at the barrel of a gun. Everywhere in the world and throughout history, democracy and freedom have been the product of a country's effort to be free. Most have needed outside help, but they have only received it, while they were already struggling to throw off the bonds of tyranny. It did not come by an outside force forcing democracy on them. We will not succeed in democratizing the Middle-east with tanks and bombs, esp. in countries that have not begged for our help. The countries in the Middle-East, and elsewhere in the world will only be democratized, when they fight for it. I really don't know what we have to do to finish the job in Iraq and I hope the President does and will tell us. I was reading about the fighting in Najaf, Al-Sadir's stronghold. It appears that in our efforts to defeat this trouble-maker, we have severely damaged a holy mosque. This has even our Iraqi allies unhappy. I think what we need to do in this city is go "old school" and I mean old. We need an old fashion siege(with modern weapons and tools, of course). Inform the citizens of Najaf that if they want to be safe, they need to leave and then just shut down the city, power, water, electricity, etc. No more costly incursions into the city. Make the bad guys come out of the city to us and then finish them off. I am not a military man, and this might have some flaws, but hey, it is an idea.