ROBERT GATES: They do have a very different mission, but that mission will be principally a training assistance advisory role. There will be a limited counterterrorism operations aspect to it, and we will still have some soldiers embedded with Iraqi units as part of the training effort. But it's a very different kind of arrangement, and our soldiers will be consolidated into a limited number of bases in order to provide protection for themselves and for civilians who are out working in the Iraqi neighborhoods and countryside, as well. They will be called "advisory and assistance brigades." They won't be called "combat brigades."

And now, we have the Af-Pak Strategy, whereby we are stepping up military action in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Noted historian and Middle East expert,Juan Cole, a harsh critic of the Bush administration, thinks that Obama has presented us with a 21st Century version of the "domino-theory", where he says:

Obama described the same sort of domino effect that Washington elites used to ascribe to international communism. In the updated, al-Qaida version, the Taliban might take Kunar Province, and then all of Afghanistan, and might again host al-Qaida, and might then threaten the shores of the United States. He even managed to add an analog to Cambodia to the scenario, saying, "The future of Afghanistan is inextricably linked to the future of its neighbor, Pakistan," and warned, "Make no mistake: Al-Qaida and its extremist allies are a cancer that risks killing Pakistan from within."

We, the people, have voted to get the hell out of Iraq.
We went in there for Bush's father. The son sacrificed us all as kings do. He used us as pawns.

OK. We know that.

But we had expressed a mandate in 2006. We elected a democratic congress to get us out of Iraq.

Then we had to elect Obama - a phony if there ever was one - to get us out of Iraq.

We are nowhere near ending this blot on the American countenance.

The left is almost finished rejoicing in having elected, as Chris Bowers of OpenLeft so sweetly referred to Obama, the "black guy". Hip Hip Hooray.

But we are still in Iraq up to our eyeballs.
And our soldiers are continuing to kill and be killed.
Still for nothing.

And this is no longer even talked about.
Thankfully, TChris has mentioned it.
But the left is asleep.
Our moral conscience is asleep.

''we have to be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless going in''

He repeated that line a thousand times,and he is doing exactly what he said.
He established a firm timeline for withdrawal of combat troops,Sept,2010, and a firm deadline for all troops,Dec 31,2011.