I think I'd agree with GUEST,Justin Urqhart's post of 27 Sep 08 - 02:16 AM, overall.

Obama's constant interruptions were annoying, but they did not prevent McCain putting his points across.

Obama's tactic/strategy (He doesn't know the difference) seems to be and have been to have been too busy attacking George W Bush to realise exactly what has been going on and why things have been done the way they have. John McCain touched on it in a reference to agreement between Admiral Mullen, General Petraeus, Osama bin Laden, and himself regarding the importance of the fight against terror in Iraq.

Afganistan and the assistance given to the Northern Alliance to sweep the Taleban from power was in direct response to an attack on American soil by an international terrorist group based in Afghanistan - To all those left wingers who chatter away about it - there was never a US Invasion of Afghanistan and once the Taleban had been swept from power the matter has been in the hands of the United Nations Security Council.

Iraq - In the wake of 9/11 Iraq was identified as the nation that posed the greatest threat to the United States of America. This evaluation and assessment was undertaken independent of the Bush administration by Congress and the US Security Services (No surprise they'd done the same thing and come to the same conclusion four years before for the Clinton administration).

By December 2001 neither Afghanistan, or anybody in the country was in a position to threaten the United States of America or anybody else. Experts advising Congress and all 19 intelligence and security agencies in America concluded that Iraq posed a threat and that threat had to be erradicated. The problem and the USA's concerns were taken to the UN Security Council, things looked good for a while, then they dropped the ball. America couldn't, and didn't, Bush had told them as plainly as possible from the outset, "Either you act to resolve what we see as being legitimate concerns, or we will, we have no choice".

Obama completely fluffed it in attempting to explain his withdrawal "strategy" for Iraq - it still amounts to a staged withdrawal irrespective of conditions on the ground, or advice from Commanders on the scene - i.e. the precipitous withdrawal that everybody is saying would be disasterous for all concerned.

Obama came out with the amazing statement about "The war on terror started in Afghanistan, should have been fought in Afghanistan and should end in Afghanistan". Utter nonsense "The War On Terror" is not a fight associated with one particular group, if he doesn't know it yet, the man should be appraised of the fact that "terrorist groups" like mushrooms spring to life overnight, like one-post Guest's on mudcat. Obama also misses the point that the "war" in Afghanistan now has been pushed towards the tribal areas of Pakistan and that is where the fight against terrorism in the area will be fought - Obama's solution is to attack Pakistan, McCain's is to work with the Government of Pakistan and work out a mechanism to allow cross-border co-operation - According to BBC reports from yesterday the newly elected President and Government of Pakistan are beginning to take concerted action against militants within the tribal areas.