What is it about politics that makes some people lose all perspective?

Today's two examples come from near -- and far.

In the United States, we have Exhibit A, also known as Newt Gingrich.  

Exhibit B comes from Afghanistan: one Hamid Karzai.

Gingrich wants to be president, but he has no shot.  Karzai is a president, but if he's not careful, he will be shot.

Of course, one doesn't enter politics without a healthy -- some might say overinflated -- ego. The best politicians are, by nature, risk-takers. Where others hold back, they charge ahead.  It takes them to great heights sometimes but also brings great falls: see Clinton, Bill, and Nixon, Richard. 

(Thursday brought another reminder:  Former Illinois Gov. Rod Rod Blagojevich left Chicago for Colorado, where he'll be serving a sentence on corruption charges in federal prison.)

And ego certainly applies to Gingrich. Times staff writer Paul West on Thursday summed up Gingrich's motivation for staying in the GOP presidential race:

At 68, the former House speaker is making what figures to be his last fling at elective politics.  But it is his sense of himself as an epic figure that may well be what's keeping him going.

Gingrich hopes for a brokered convention, something that hasn't happened for decades but that appeals to the historian in him.  It may be a figment of his imagination, but it's a harmless fantasy -- unless you're Mitt Romney and hoping to wrap up the nomination.

Karzai, on the other hand, is playing a much more dangerous game.  On Thursday, Times staff writer Laura King reported from Kabul that the Afghan president "had demanded a quicker end to the Western combat mission and a pullback of NATO troops from rural areas."

Karzai's office said he told visiting Defense Secretary Leon Panetta that by year's end, U.S. troops should be garrisoned only in large bases, abandoning outposts in rural districts like Panjwayi, the scene of Sunday's shooting deaths. 

"Afghanistan's security forces have the capability to provide security in the villages of Afghanistan," said a statement from Karzai's office.

Which makes one wonder what country Karzai thinks he's living in. Especially because the Taliban announced Thursday that not only was it suspending talks with the United States on the war but that it would be "pointless" to engage in any talks with the Karzai government.

Karzai's response?

The president also called for a significant acceleration of the handover of security responsibilities to Afghan forces, saying NATO should wind down its combat role in 2013 instead of 2014. "Our demand is to speed up this process, and authority should be given to Afghans," the presidential palace's statement said.

Perhaps Karzai could take a lesson from Gingrich and read up on his history.  Here's a name he might want to check out: Najibullah.

After the Soviet Union withdrew its forces from Afghanistan, Najibullah was president.  Forced from office during the ensuing civil war, Najibullah took refuge in the U.N. compound in Kabul for four years.  But in 1996, the Taliban seized power. 

A Times' story from Friday Sept. 27, 1996, records his fate:

The bloated, beaten body of the man who also once headed the hated Afghan Communists' security service was strung up from a lamppost outside the presidential palace, reports said.

The Times' Doyle McManus wrote Thursday that given recent events, President Obama needs a Plan C for getting out of Afghanistan.  So Karzai may get his wish for a sped-up withdrawal.  

But if that's the case, Karzai's name just might end up listed next to Najibullah's in the history books of the 21st century.

ALSO:

Murohama enshrined [The reply]

Save the American West [Blowback]

Big government won't build you a snore room, that's for sure

-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, left, meets with Afghan President Hamid Karza in Kabul on Thursday. Credit: Mohammad Ismail / EPA

Whatever military justice ultimately delivers to the soldier accused of methodically killing 16 Afghan civilians, most of them women and children in their beds, the case says all the worst things about how a few -- or even one -- American soldier going rogue can wipe out not only blameless civilians but years of nuanced and carefully constructed foreign and military policy.

The one that came to mind was the My Lai massacre, the March 1968 incident in Vietnam where as many as 500 civilians -- mostly women, children and the elderly -- were massacred by U.S. soldiers, in an incident that ended up shaping the outcome of that war.

The reason it came to mind is because, some years ago, Times photographer Robert Chamberlin and I were traveling the country, interviewing people -- some of them just at random -- about the impact of the Vietnam War on the nation's culture and psyche.

We talked to dozens: an exec with Dow Chemical, the maker of napalm; a musically inclined Vermont dairy farmer who stamped out 45 records of his patriotic songs on a device on his kitchen table; a brother and sister we encountered at a picnic table alongside an Oklahoma highway -- siblings whose father was still missing in Vietnam.

And in Columbus, Ga., the city alongside the huge Army base of Ft. Benning, we went into a jewelry store. We wanted to talk to a man who managed the store for his in-laws. His name was William Calley, and he was a former lieutenant and the only soldier convicted, by a military jury, of the premeditated killings of 22 old men, women and children in My Lai in 1968. (As many as 500 civilians were killed by Calley and others in his unit, but of the other service members charged, only Calley was convicted.)

The My Lai massacre was one of those seminal incidents that changed public perception of the Vietnam War, like the 1972 image taken by my friend Nick Ut, of the Associated Press, of burned children running screaming down a road after they had been accidentally napalmed by the South Vietnamese.

I thought of Calley when I heard of Sunday night's killings of the sleeping Afghans. It was immediately and forcefully condemned by military and civilian leadership -- unlike My Lai, when military leaders initially commended Calley's unit and the U.S. leadership resisted the idea that the Calley unit had done anything wrong.

When the news of My Lai emerged, the servicemen who had intervened in the massacre, putting their helicopter between Calley's soldiers and the civilians, actually received death threats; mutilated animals were left on their doorsteps. Their fellow soldiers called them traitors, and the helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson, said that a senior member of Congress remarked that "if anybody goes to jail in this My Lai stuff, it will be the helicopter pilot, Hugh Thompson." It took decades for their courage to be officially honored.

The soldier in the Afghanistan killings could face the death penalty. Calley's sentence of life in prison at hard labor was whittled away, and he ended up serving under four years of house arrest. President Nixon issued a limited presidential pardon to Calley.

Americans initially thought Calley's conviction was wrong; Americans' revulsion at the shooting of the Afghan civilians has been, by contrast, almost universal.

Whether this incident has the power to change the course of the U.S. role in Afghanistan, as the My Lai killings did in Vietnam, is another matter.

Back in that Columbus jewelry store, I tried to ask Calley about the incident. Years later, the local paper reported, he told a Kiwanis group that he was "very sorry" about My Lai. To me, he just walked away.

ALSO:

Afghanistan on edge

To catch a Kony, cash won't cut it

Colombian rebels say they want to restart peace talks

--Patt Morrison

Photo: Bodies of women and children killed by U.S. troops near the village of My Lai, South Vietnam, in March 1968. Credit: Ronald L. Haeberle/Life Magazine, AP Photo

So this is getting seriously stupid, all the campaign-season rhetoric about Iran.

First, President Obama, speaking Sunday to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, says:

"I will take no options off the table, and I mean what I say. That includes all elements of American power. A political effort aimed at isolating Iran; a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is monitored; an economic effort to impose crippling sanctions; and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.

"Iran's leaders should know that I do not have a policy of containment. I have a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. And as I've made clear time and again during the course of my presidency, I will not hesitate to use force when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests."

Sounds clear and tough-guy enough, right?

COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS: Presidential Election 2012

Well, apparently not to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who, The Times reported from Snellville, Ga., reacted to Obama's speech this way:

"If Barack Obama is reelected, Iran will have a nuclear weapon and the world will change," Romney told a crowd of more than a 1,000 people at a pancake breakfast that his campaign hosted in this Atlanta suburb.

When an 11-year-old boy asked the candidate how he would keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, Romney said Obama had not imposed "crippling sanctions against Iran." "He's also failed to communicate that military options are on the table and in fact in our hand, and that it's unacceptable to America for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.

"I will have those military options. I will take those crippling sanctions and put them into place," he said. "And I will speak out to the Iranian people of the peril of them becoming nuclear …. I'm not willing to allow your generation to have to worry about a threat from Iran or anyone else that nuclear material be used against Americans.”

Oh, and have some more pancakes, young fellow. I want you big and strong for when I send you off to war!

But seriously. Obama said all options were on the table -- and Romney still called him out. What is this, the second-grade playground?

C'mon, fellows, stop and think a minute. If you don't want Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, does it make sense to keep bombarding it with threats of military action? I mean, I'm pretty sure they've got the picture by now. 

Do you really have to make a bunch of paranoid types more paranoid? Isn't this why Israel says it fears Iran -- because it has threatened to destroy Israel?

So how do all of these threats to attack Iran make it want the bomb less?

The bottom line: This is political gamesmanship at its worst. Romney and the GOP candidates court pro-Israel votes by taking an ultra-hard line on Iran. Which forces Obama to hew to a hard line as well.

But it's a very dangerous game. It could lead to war. It could get lots of people killed.

And yes, for me, it's personal too: I have two sons.One just turned 18, at which point you are -- yes, still -- required to sign up with the Selective Service System.

Frankly, I'm getting tired of hearing pandering politicians cast about for votes by offering up the lives of other people's kids in the name of national security.

Take Romney's sons: Did he offer them up as cannon fodder? Check out this New York Times story in 2007, the last time he ran, when he was asked about whether they had served in the military:

Mr. Romney expressed appreciation for the country's "volunteer army" and said "that's the way we're going to keep it." He explained his sons had made different career choices in life and had not chosen to serve in the military, but he mentioned a niece whose husband, he said, had just been called up by the National Guard ….

But he wound up his response with this: "It's remarkable how we can show our support for our nation, and one of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected, because they think I’d be a great president. My son, Josh, bought the family Winnebago and has visited 99 counties, most of them with his three kids and his wife. And I respect that and respect all of those in the way they serve this great country."

Yes, well, Mitt, the campaign trail is a rugged place, that's for sure, especially in a Winnebago.

But ask the fathers and mothers and husbands and wives of the thousands of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan about real war.

And then, just maybe, you -- and, frankly, Obama too -- might decide to take your finger off the trigger.

And quit playing politics with the lives of American kids.

ALSO:

Afghanistan on edge

Staying out of Syria's conflict

Move over, Egypt, Iraq and Syria 

-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: Mitt Romney speaks Sunday at a pancake breakfast at Brookwood High School in Snellville, Ga., outside Atlanta. Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

What do you call a 10-year-old boy in Afghanistan? Apparently, a suicide bomber.

The Times reported Tuesday that two 10-year-olds who had been arrested for trying to carry out suicide attacks, then released last year, had been rearrested -- for trying to carry out suicide bombings.

Provincial spokesman Zalmay Ayubi said the boys each had a vest full of explosives when they were detained along with three adults suspected of being militants, and that they told intelligence officers they had been recruited for suicide missions.

A statement from provincial officials quoted one of the boys, named Azizullah, as saying the pair had undergone training at a madrasa, or religious school, in Pakistan. The mullahs there told the boys they would be unharmed when they set off their bombs, Azizullah reportedly said.

News of the boys' arrest came the same week that Muslim militant Umar Patek appeared in court in Indonesia to answer charges related to deadly bombings a decade ago in Bali that killed 202 people in a nightclub. Oddly enough -- or perhaps not -- he was captured last year in Abbottabad, the Pakistani town where Osama bin Laden was hiding.

But unlike the 202 people killed in the bombings, Patek gets a lawyer. And surprise, he downplayed his client's role: "His involvement in the Bali bombing ... [was] not as big as is being described. We will challenge that in a defense plea next week."

Also this week, a radical Islamic preacher, Abu Qatada, who had been under detention in Britain for most of the last 6 1/2 years, was released from jail Monday.

British officials consider him extremely dangerous, saying he encourages suicide attacks and terrorism, and they want him sent back to Jordan to face terrorism charges.

But Abu Qatada also is being given the benefit of the doubt in some legal circles. Last month the European Court of Human Rights blocked his deportation, saying he could face conviction on the basis of evidence obtained by torture.

And what do these cases have in common?  

They show the difficulty -- perhaps even the futility -- of trying to fight terrorism within the judicial system.

When religious leaders find it acceptable to use children as bombs, it says something terrible about the values of our enemies.

And although it's a tribute to modern society that we remain committed to legal rules, those same legal rules can be -- are being -- manipulated by those committed to our destruction.

It would be nice if there were an easy answer.  Perhaps the madrasas that are training children to be terrorists should be shut down?

Not likely.  As the recent controversy in the U.S. over health insurance coverage for contraceptives shows, government interference in religious freedom is a tough sell everywhere.

No, we're stuck. We must stick to our legal system. We must allow freedom of religion.

And we must fight our enemies and safeguard our soldiers and our nation.

But it would be nice if we could keep 10-year-olds out of the fight.

ALSO:

On Iran, a stark choice

Obama's contraception compromise

Goldberg: Free healthcare? That's rich

--Paul Whitefield

Photo: Taliban fighters walk with their weapons after joining the Afghan government forces during a ceremony in Herat province. Credit: Aref Karimi /AFP/Getty Images

OK, show of hands: Who thinks Afghanistan is headed for a peaceful future?

Yeah, me neither.

In an Op-Ed article Wednesday, Peter Thomsen, who served as U.S. special envoy and ambassador to Afghanistan from 1989 to 1992, argues that any solution to the country's civil war must be brokered by the Afghans themselves.

He quotes a Jan. 24 statement by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul: "Only Afghans can decide the future of Afghanistan."

But in a news story, also on Wednesday, Times reporter Laura King writes from Kabul that U.S. officials increasingly see Afghan President Hamid Karzai as "a prime impediment to urgent U.S. efforts to jump-start negotiations" with the Taliban.

Hmmm. Seems to me that what we have here is a failure to communicate.

If the Afghans themselves have to solve the problem, but the Afghans themselves can't agree on how to solve the problem, how is the problem going to get solved?

And what's really frustrating about the situation is that you get the feeling everyone involved knows how it's going to end but just doesn't want to admit it.

Actually, you could just go read about the Soviet Union's adventure in Afghanistan, then extrapolate:

• The United States and what's left of our NATO allies will pull out of Afghanistan at the end of 2014.
• Karzai and his corrupt cronies will be out of the picture shortly thereafter.
• The Taliban will slug it out with whatever warlords are left.
• A lot of Afghans will be killed in the process.
• Whichever side proves the most brutal -- and has the backing of Pakistan, so probably the Taliban -- will seize power.

Meanwhile, there's the little issue of the American lives that will be lost -- and the American dollars that will be wasted -- in this process.

At home, we're quarreling over cutting the social safety net. In Afghanistan, we're throwing dollars down a corrupt government's rat hole, a government that doesn't exist without those dollars and won't exist when American boots start walking.

So here's an idea: Pull out in six months. Save those lives. Save those dollars.

And yes -- sadly -- leave the Afghans to do what they've done for hundreds of years: Solve their own problems, in their own brutal way.

ALSO:

Jonah Goldberg: A U.N. -- but for good guys 

Clint Eastwood to Karl Rove: "Do you feel lucky?"

A U.S. author's book, an Iranian translator's peril 

-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: President Hamid Karzai last month in Kabul. Credit: Shah Marai / AFP/Getty Images

So, America, remember the Vietnam War? Because the war in Afghanistan just gave me a bad case of deja vu.

On Wednesday, The Times' Ken Dilanian and David S. Cloud reported:

The U.S. intelligence community says in a secret new assessment that the war in Afghanistan is mired in stalemate, and warns that security gains from an increase in American troops have been undercut by pervasive corruption, incompetent governance and Taliban fighters operating from neighboring Pakistan, according to U.S. officials.

Could someone please tell me how in the world we've let this happen? Why is it that the best and the brightest keep getting Americans killed for nothing?

The British got run out of Afghanistan in the 19th century. The Soviets got run out of Afghanistan in the 20th century.

Yet we've allowed ourselves to get stuck there?

And according to the classified National Intelligence Estimate completed last month and cited by The Times’ reporters, things aren't likely to improve:

In a section looking at future scenarios, the NIE also asserts that the Afghan government in Kabul may not be able to survive as the U.S. steadily pulls out its troops and reduces military and civilian assistance.

The costs? Cover your eyes:

Some in Congress and the Obama administration are concerned that the bleak assessment suggests little progress was made in the last year. During that time, the U.S. has suffered more than 400 military fatalities and spent more than $100 billion. As of Wednesday, 1,873 Americans had been killed in Afghanistan since U.S. forces invaded in late 2001, according to the website icasualties.org.

In 2001 and 2002, when the George W. Bush administration launched the war in retaliation for the 9/11 attacks, 51 U.S. soldiers died.

Imagine if we'd had the good sense to declare victory then and get out?

Instead, we've doubled down on a bad bet. The result? Steadily rising casualties, with 499 killed in 2010 and 418 last year.

Now you might say that's not so bad, really, compared with the Vietnam War, in which more than 58,000 Americans were killed.

Sure. Try telling that to the families of the dead.

Tell that to the family of Lance Cpl. Donald Hogan. The San Clemente native and Tesoro High School graduate is to be awarded the Navy Cross next week. What did he do? In August 2009, while on patrol in Helmand province, he spotted an explosive device and hurled himself into the body of a fellow Marine to protect him and others from the blast.

This California hero died saving others. I'm sure his family is proud. I'm also sure they'd rather have him home, safe.

Some will say that if we leave now, the sacrifices of Hogan and others will have been in vain.

But I say we can't afford any more such tragic sacrifices for a lost cause.

We can't do much about Afghanistan now. President Obama says we'll be out by 2014. Good. Hopefully he sticks to that plan. And hopefully a Republican hawk doesn't become president.

But we need to make sure there aren't any more Afghanistans. And to do that, everyone in this country needs to have some skin in this game.

We need a military draft. We need to make sure that all of America's sons and daughters are subject to combat duty.

That way, the next time war fever hits, we'll be sure that everyone has caught cold before we go into battle.

It's time to put a stop to politicians doing the deciding while only a few do the dying.

RELATED:

Ted Rall in Afghanistan

Staying the course in Afghanistan

McManus: A long goodbye to Afghanistan

-- Paul Whitefield

Photo: The remains of Lance Cpl. Donald Hogan are returned to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. Hogan is to be awarded the Navy Cross for bravery in Afghanistan. Credit: Associated Press

The Obama administration is minimizing as saber-rattling threats from Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz, although Washington has made it clear that blocking the strait would be an act of war. Chief Pentagon spokesman George Little said Wednesday that any disruption of traffic through the strait "will not be tolerated." 

The relatively  understated rhetoric contrasts with the robust stance taken by a past president.

Ronald Reagan? George W. Bush?  No, a president often derided as soft and a dupe of totalitarians. Yes, Jimmy Carter.

In his 1980 State of the Union address, Carter, with the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan in mind, made this pledge (or threat): 

An attempt by any outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force.

Carter's statement of U.S. policy came to be known as the Carter doctrine, which has pretty much disappeared from political discourse. If President Obama decides to ratchet up the rhetoric, it will be interesting to see if he invokes it by name.

ALSO:

Nuclear proliferation: Engaging Iran

Obama: Is it too soon to judge his presidency?

New U.S. bomb gives Iran something to think about

--Michael McGough

Photo: President Jimmy Carter on  July  15, 1979. Credit: Dale G. Young / Associated Press

Want to contribute to -– and accelerate -– the economic recovery? Here are a few suggestions to get money circulating:

--Move out of your parents' house. Consider rent for an apartment -- not to mention furniture, cleaning supplies, cable, food for when your friends come over -- a down payment on your country's future. (It may pay off in your personal life too. Living with mom can really kill your game.)

--Get married. The wedding industry is flush with cash. As someone who's normally prudent and unconcerned with anything fussy, I can tell you from recent experience that the wedding biz creates a fantasy land that renders brides/moms/grandmas powerless in a world of dreamy dresses, feathery accessories, shimmery tablecloths, decadent dessert bars, personalized stationery -- all of which must be budgeted for.   

--Have a baby. Think you're being responsible by waiting out the downturn before bringing a baby into this world? So did I. But actually, having babies may just be the trick to paving a path to a brighter tomorrow. And not just because babies are super cute when they smile. Rather than resisting your biological clock, have a baby, move out of your one-bedroom apartment into a bigger, pricier place, start buying more food, hire a babysitter -- you get the point. Trailblazers, I encourage you to procreate (so that I may follow your footsteps in a few years).

--Go on a shopping spree. And don't feel guilty about it. It's not spending with reckless abandon when your cash is going toward stimulating the economy and your sales tax fees are helping out our state.

--Cheer up. Optimism won't just change your personal outlook; it may just save the economy.

RELATED:

Don't let that robot steal your job

Poverty and the pursuit of happiness

Healthcare is killing entrepreneurial potential

Millennials, lazy? Try enterprising, creative, resilient

Who's worse: Baby boomers or boomerang children?

--Alexandra Le Tellier

Photo: Shoppers crowd into the Ann Taylor at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa on Black Friday. Credit: Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times

CNN and two think tanks have limited Tuesday night's Republican presidential candidates' debate to national security and foreign policy, although the questioners and some of the candidates may try to shoehorn economic and budget policy into the discussion.

The focus will be especially on Herman "Libya?" Cain, but watch Rick Perry to see if he's been coached to say anything other than that he would let Israel bomb Iran. Speaking of Israel, look for the refrain that President Obama is somehow less than devoted to the Jewish state, despite a statement from Israel's defense minister to the contrary.

Another question is likely to be what the candidates think of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It will be interesting to see how many of the panelists will echo Jon Huntsman Jr.'s support for a larger withdrawal from Afghanistan. Or will the compulsion to bash Obama lead them to take a more hawkish posture -- for example, by griping about the full withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq?

Finally, the buildup of U.S. forces in Australia may give the candidates an opening to rattle sabers over China.

The positions the candidates take will be less important than whether they master the basic facts of foreign policy. With the exception of Newt Gingrich, that is very much up in the air.

Note: Join us here on the Opinion L.A. blog during the debate for quick takes from columnist @DoyleMcManus and editorial writer @MichaelMcGough3.

RELATED:

Guarding Mr. Cain

Rick Perry's damage

Romney's challengers fade away

McManus: Will 'New Newt' prevail?

Goldberg: Sizing up a Gingrich-Romney showdown

--Michael McGough

Photo: Tuesday's Republican presidential candidates' debate will be hosted by CNN. Credit: Ethan Miller / Getty Images

Want a brief history of the Iraq War?  Here it is, in two quotes:

"I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators."  — Vice President Dick Cheney, "Meet the Press," Sunday, March 16, 2003.

"I was so happy to hear that the Americans are leaving our country. They destroyed our country. They created so much tension among Iraqis." — Firs Fertusi, a former fighter in the now-disbanded Mahdi Army, Los Angeles Times, Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011.

All the costs — the more than 4,000 American casualties, the untold thousands of Iraqis killed, the billions of dollars spent, the ascendancy of Iran — are reflected in the yawning gap between Cheney's unbridled confidence on the eve of war and the grim reality of what happened.

In the end, not even really a "thank you."  Rather, it's more, "Don't let the door hit you in the behind on the way out."

So a Democratic president is ending a Republican president's war — a war based on faulty intelligence at best and lies at worst. And as my colleague Paul Thornton pointed out, today's GOP presidential candidates are using that decision to withdraw all U.S. troops by year's end to try to score cheap political points. 

How cheap? Consider this.  These same candidates have no problem vowing to overturn "Obamacare" if they are elected.  So if they really disagree with Obama's decision to withdraw  U.S. troops, all they have to do is say that on the stump:  "If elected, I'll send U.S. troops back to Iraq."

I wouldn't hold my breath for that one, though.

Yes, Iran's influence in the region is growing.  And yes, it's possible that Iraq's government won't be pro-U.S.

It's also likely that Islamist parties in Iraq, as well as elsewhere in the Middle East, will gain from the Arab Spring revolts and the toppling of Libya's Moammar Kadafi.  (For a good analysis of that, check out Doyle McManus' column in Sunday’s Times.

But let's face facts.  The U.S. is stretched militarily by the war in Afghanistan. Our economy is struggling. If, as some Republicans in Congress insist, even domestic programs such as disaster aid must be paid for by cuts in other programs, how can the GOP possibly call for continuing a costly military presence in a country that doesn't even want us there?

The bottom line: We weren't seen as liberators. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has a functioning government.

Enough is enough. It's time for us to go. 

RELATED:

Why we quit spending ...

McManus: Mosque and state

Obama succeeds -- when Republicans let him

McCain: Could it be time to intervene in Syria?

On Iraq, Obama's GOP critics take the low road

— Paul Whitefield

Photo: A woman walks near the site of a car bomb attack in Baghdad on June 20, 2010. Credit: Hadi Mizban / Associated Press