OT...Kidnapped American Beheaded

[UPEngineer]

I just saw on the news where the Lockheed-Martin employee kidnapped in Saudia Arabia was beheaded.

How much more of this does America have to take? Either get out of those countries or send enough troops to take care of the problem once and for all!

God Bless Paul Johnson and his family!

 

[A_Noland]

In retaliation the Saudi's should execute the prisoners the kidnappers wanted released. That is just my opinion.

 

[occammd]

Sounds like a good opinion.

You have to take Reagan's stance on this, in my opinion, don't negotiate w/kidnappers. Just causes more kidnapping.

 

[cdru]

I just saw on the news where the Lockheed-Martin employee kidnapped in Saudia Arabia was beheaded.

How much more of this does America have to take? Either get out of those countries or send enough troops to take care of the problem once and for all!

God Bless Paul Johnson and his family!

I'm not sure if people knew this, but Paul Johnson had lived in Saudi for close to 10 years and was a Muslim himself, and was working for the Saudi government, not the US.

No matter what we do, we are screwed. If we just pull out now, we get accused by the international community of starting something and not finishing it. If we do nothing different, we continue to loose lives and get accused of trying to control the Iraqi government. If we send more, we get accused of being an even bigger bully.

Maybe now that Saddam is out of our legal custody and the Iraqi's are in charge of the country things will improve, but I'm not counting on it. It's just going to become more unstable before things get better.

My brother narrowly escaped being deployed early last year when pretty much his entire base left leaving just a few to "guard" the base. He's scheduled to go very late this year or early next year. With that and a close friend over there now, I really hope things improve.

All this to save a few cents on oil...

 

[bcshields]

I never thought going to Iraq was a good idea in the first place.. it never seemed like the case was well planned out. I don't think it was for oil. I'm sure there was a ligitamate threat that was realized at the time. I also believe there was some faulty intelligence, and some jumping of the gun done by the administration.

Basically, the whole reason for going to war was one big mistake. Some WMD's have been found.. a few gallons of sarin gas. Is that enough to go to war for?

But.. now we're there. Let's get it done and get the heck out. Don't leave Iraq hangin, but get what we need done.. done, and move on.

I'll tell you, I liked Bush up until Iraq. Good progress being made on the home agenda, good war with Afghanistan... but after that his administration lost all credibility with me becuase of Iraq.

I'm still on the fence. I think some of their true colors shined through and I'm not sure I'll vote for Bush again. Won't vote for Kerry either.

Anyone want to start a betting pool on Iran/N.Korea as soon as the election's over?

 

[cdru]

Anyone want to start a betting pool on Iran/N.Korea as soon as the election's over?

I don't see Iran. The UN/IAEA are already looking into Iran. While it wouldn't take much for US to just "expand" it's current battle grounds since we are already on 2 sides of Iran, that would just open up a whole nother can of worms in the middle east.

North Korea, while likely doesn't have the terrorist side of things as much as the middle east, is nuclear and is close to having long range missles. With one of the worlds largest, if not the largest millitary establishment, it won't just be a waltz in and out if we did go in. China likely wouldn't also just sit by. They haven't been supportive of what N. Korea has done, but they also haven't been condeming all of it either.

After current campaigns in Iraq and Afganistan start to die down, I wouldn't expect the US to pick any more fights for a little while. Maybe France should be invaded next...