More lives lost

Nine American lives were lost in Iraq on Tuesday and Wednesday. I won't recount the article for you. If you've had the news on, you've seen it.

The economy has taken on great importance over the past few months. It's certainly affecting me and you can see the candidates are also noticing. One quote I heard last night from one of the talking heads was that the economic indicator Bill Clinton paid attention to most was the price of gas. It seems that as the economy takes a downward swing, we hear less and less about Iraq.

I hate this war as much as anyone can and I've been against it from the beginning. I hear promises from most of the Democratic candidates to get us out of Iraq quickly and while that sounds wonderful to me, I can't lose sight of the fact that it's not going to be that easy. The next president can't just walk into the Oval Office and say "bring them home NOW." And POOF it's all over. It isn't going to work that way. We've been there a LONG time. It's going to take a while to get them home.

Not only our soldiers, but what about all our civilians who are over there working? I've heard estimates of 100,000+ American civilians working in Iraq--most for private contractors. How do we get them all home safely--and quickly? Realistically, this pull out will take months--at least. Hillary is the only person I've heard mention the civilians working there.

What about the safety of the Iraqi people? What about all the destruction we helped cause? Shouldn't we have to stick around and clean up our mess? Don't get me wrong. I want this war ENDED yesterday, but how in the world do we do that? It isn't going to be as simple as some people--including some of the candidates--seem to think.