by Eugene Stevens

Created on: December 26, 2008

George Washington once said "There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy". Though in Washingtons day, the preparations for war were far less complicated, and the possibility of engaging with a distant enemy was an extremely difficult proposition, and his actions proved this by defeating the British during the American Revolution.

In 1838 Abraham Lincoln said "At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth in their military chests; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in the trial of a thousand years".

Both of these views cite the difficulty of waging wars abroad, especially when such wars are not approved of by the citizens of a country, as is the case with the war in Iraq. The Iraq war is also a war with another unusal twist. The initial invasion was based on faulty intelligence, and seems to have been carried out with ulterior motives.

The US military is currently fighting on two fronts. The war on terror is essentially a worldwide affair, demanding huge amounts of supplies, hundreds of thousands of troops and is in essence, a logistical and administrative nightmare. Armed services retention is very low,and troopsare forced to endure multiple deployments. The regular military has also become dependent upon reserve and guard units to bolster numbers. A recent call for an additional thirty thousand troops has gone out as part of a build up in Afghanistan. The National Guard currently has approximately four hundred fifty thousand troops on the books, though a good portion of troops (approximately one quarter) are not deployable for factors such as medical reasons and another portion of that are troops who are in the ready reserve, and their status may not be known until such time that they are called back into service (should that occur).The US troops on the ground in Iraq have shifted their focus from a combat mission to a law enforcement mission. US Troops are there training Iraqi military and police so that a smooth transition may take place when a withdrawl does take place

The Iraq government has also demanded a timeline for withdrawl.The Pentagon needs to reevaluate the situation there and prepare for a pull out, realizing that maintaining an occupation force is quickly becoming very costly, and the approval of the American people is wearing thin, additionally, the economy may not be able to support the continuation of a protracted war abroad. To maintain a presence in Iraq for a continued and/or undetermined amount of time would be very unreasonable at this place and time in history.

Dwight D Eisenhower once said "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron".

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