Do we stay or go?

Should or shouldn’t we stay in Iraq? After the election in Iraq in January, 2005, many people would say that we need to get out of there. Many people think that we should have withdrawn the troops after we captured Saddam Hussein. I am not sure when we should have, but I think that we definitely should have withdrawn the troops way before now.
I have personally had someone close to me die over there fighting and I know several others that have been there or are there now. The last soldiers I talked to about it said that they knew what they were fighting for originally, but now that they have captured Saddam Hussein and he is out of the picture, soldiers are just getting killed by roadside bombs while trying to deliver food to other camps or while on small similar trips.
We are essentially paying for our family members, who are over there fighting, to get killed. Soldiers I have talked to have told me that the Iraqis don’t even want them there anymore. Soldiers also have to stay longer with extended contracts, basically against their will because they don’t have the draft in order and enough people are not signing themselves up.
Why do we need to get Iraq’s security forces up and running? We made our country on our own; other countries can stand up for themselves and do the same thing. It is not easy running a country, as anyone could guess, but someone needs to do it. It is not our job to go into other countries, thinking we are bettering them, and try to change them to be like the United States.
The exit strategy of wearing them down and then building them back up that they had originally was not a good idea and didn’t work. What they ultimately need to do is pull the troops out. Men and women in our armed forces need to rest and see their families. They deserve to have a break.

Iraqi Officials' Charges Dropped

Qassim Abdul-zahra and John Affleck from the Austin American-Statesmen (http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/world/03/06/0306iraq.html) reported that on Wednesday, March 5, 2008, two Iraqi officials were let free. Minister Hakim al-Zamili and Brig. Gen. Hameed al-Shimmari were charged with kidnapping, murder, and corruption. The charges were dropped because of the lack of evidence. Apparently, “The collapse of the case struck a blow to U.S.-backed national reconciliation efforts.” Some people said it “considers today as a black mark and a grave setback in the history of the Iraqi judiciary system. What has happened today is a big mistake that should be corrected immediately; otherwise, the country will be drawn into disaster.” The article also mentions that five days after the US pulled its troops out of north Iraq, Turkey began fighting again. I think that it is obvious no matter what we try to do by regulating over there, it doesn’t help. The best thing we can do is stay out of it. I don’t know why we were even involved in the case for these two Iraqi officials in the first place. I have had a family member die in Fallujah and I have talked to a couple of other guys that have fought/are fighting over in the Middle East. Every one of them that I have talked to and asked if they think we’re doing the right thing by being over there has said, “No”. They said that at first they had reason to be over there fighting, but now, no one wants them there and everyone is just getting killed. It drives me nuts hearing about the men and women serving our country and dying. The people in the Middle East are going to do what they want to whether it’s what we agree with or not. We can’t make peace in the world on our own, and I think that we need to get out of there and out of their business.