There was no al Qadea in Iraq, we invaded anyway. The leadership of al Qaeda has been killed. The damage we do to ourselves by chasing alleged remnants all over the globe and killing people willy-nilly is far worse that what they could do to us.

And 9-11 didn't occur simply because someone "hates freedom, hates our way of life" as Bush used to say. It was retaliation for many, many offenses against Muslims, and an effort to get Americans over there so as to be able to kill them easier.

Another reason for giving it up is that we are creating more and more of them the more we try to kill them. We are their best recruiters, and have spawned a perpetual war we can't win because our tactics simply create more and more hatred. Which was OBLs stated objective.

One should pick their own fights, just as OBL did, and he picked one he could win. Vietnam should have taught us to fight our own fight, not the other guys. Spending what, 0.01 percent of what the US does, they fight to a draw, and keep the US engaged and bleeding from every asset we have - manpower, munitions, equipment, money. They lose more people, but they have more and that's a renewable resource. Our Treasury is becoming less so.

Yes, TB, I did pull that 0.01% figure out of my ass. I look at an RPG and a tank, Humvee or helicopter and take a guess. I see a IED made from our own 155mm ammo blowing up a Bradley, and take a guess. I add in the cost of a convoy creeping along at 2 miles an hour as the road is swept for something that may not be there, and I guess again. And if I'm off by a factor of 10, it is probably a high estimate, not a low one.

The al Qaeda stuff is simply to keep US troops in the Middle East. They are a threat, but not the threat they''re made out to be.

What does the airline industry figure? That if they have to spend $1,000,000 to save one passenger's life, it's probably not worth it. The US is spending far, far more and still losing American lives, the worst of both worlds.