My Two Cents:

by Ron Powell

Bravery and valor on the battlefield are of no consequence if the war being fought has no just and honorable cause or purpose....There are no legitimate goals or objectives in an unjust or invalid conflict being prosecuted by force of arms and the blood of good people.

My take on the war(s) in the Middle East is simple: We shouldn't have gone in the first place and we have no business being there now...Whether the Department of Defense or the State Department agrees with him or not, the young ex-marine who resigned his diplomatic postition in protest over our continued presence in Afghanistan has it absolutely right.  We should stand with him in his brave and bold move to bring attention to the fact that what we are doing in that part of the world is just plain wrong....

In the wake of 9/11, and the notion that we are seeking to bring an international criminal and his criminal enterprise to justice, we have wasted resources and lives on a manhunt that ought to have been concluded long ago.....There is no succinct or cogent articulation of the reasons why we have been at this for as long as we have, and we should not commit another American life to a nefarious conflagration that has, at best, nebulous ideological, philosophical and political underpinnings......

If we truly believe that Bin Laden is alive and being harbored in the region, we should withdraw all of our troops and issue an ultimatum in the strongest possible terms and, failing that, anihilate all of the targets   where he may be hiding in such a way as to not risk another American life and then, completely and absolutely walk away from it all. 

Nothing good can come from continuing to work with an illegitimate government, rogue mercinaries, drug over-lords and wasting American tax dollars and American lives....I am in full and unfettered support of our troops in the Middle East.  I do not, however, accept or agree with our 'reasons' for sending them there....