well what shall we focus on now instead of healthcare?

Jeanne - I feel it is time to think in terms of recruitment of more and more indigenous armymen who should be entrusted with the task of taking care of the area. It just defeats my thinking as to why should US alone should man the areas where the war on terror is on. The entire world is duty bound to ensure that peace reigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. With more and more expoisions and attacks by terrorists both in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is high time that UN took the initiative to reassess the situation and put a remedy in place. The most that US do be to supply arms and ammunitions including training to people in Iraq and Afghanistan as also to supervise or oversee the activities there.

Incidentally, the semblance of governments installed at both places do not appear capable of taking care of the state administration, what to speak of war. Obama would do well to get the UN to put the heads of nations together and chalk out a strategy that would ensure that prior to recall of outside forces, they should develop a fool-proof system to tackle the menace of terror as also to bring peace at the respective places.

We have for whatever reason assumed this mission of world policeman. A handful of nations provide some, sometimes considerable amounts of aid but most stand around and like the UN call us names for not doing more.

Even worse, the majority of the world's militaries are next to worthless so even if they go to help-we spend more time protecting and equipping them than they are worth.

I honestly think Obama still has no real plan Jeanne. He still has hopes his talking will solve the problem or bring in real help from more of our allies. He is simply playing for time and hoping.

Charles thanks for the comment. Surely Charles, there is a limit to which people or countries can manipulate things to achieve their own ends. Jealousy is not limited to people or individuals only, even countries and continents are victims of this curse. When US went to the aid of Kuwait, people had to make out an excuse of oil. Even if we accept this for real, I would suggest that the decision did not warrant anything else than to safeguard the integrity of Kuwait. So the excuse of oil did not hold water. And now it is that of policeman. I personally feel these are only ways to browbeat a country like US for doing something humanitarian.

Well, why go that far when, as an Indian I am aware of the aid in the form of edible items that US provided to India during the middle of 20th century. This was in fact vetoed by some vested elements here, that found it expedient to exploit their own communal agenda and decided to distance US from India. As a matter of fact, with US being distanced Russia (then USSR) put a step forward for their own gain but failed to make any impact here since the cold war era could not help cement the relation to last any that long. Well, bickering by some countries or the other will always exist and it is best to leave such elements isolated.

Secondly, I would not hesitate to say that the term "policeman" was coined by enemies of US and directed at creating ill-will among its allies although it has not achieved any purpose, in the real sense nor has it managed to create a wedge between US and its allies. Moreover, in time of adversities, none of these countries are prepared to take the initiative to sort out world related issues or find solution to problems. They either keep mum or just vanish in to thin air for some other countries to step in. I feel it would be only proper that we ignore such mean definitions that could at best be ignored and get back to thrashing out the present issues that have all brought the US at the receiving end of most critics.

Well, it is surely is easy to judge after seeing the result. Still, there is a feeling lurking behind my mind that fingering Iraq with Saddam entrenched in it was detrimental to US interest, but he did not give an alternative either and went down the gallows asserting that he too was a ‘jihadi’ – so that is that. This is just an afterthought. Thanks for coming in.