The banner above is linked at the bottom. It is a passionate speech for peace and justice.

Our leaders today believe that these two can not be had. They believe we must fight wars for peace. They believe that we must fight wars for justice. They believe that we can stop terror and the users of terror through war. That mindset could not be farther from the truth. We can only stop terror by offering a better solution to the poverty stricken, oppressed people that are recruited to carry out terror attacks.

One might argue that that is what we are doing. Isn't that what Bush and the neocons have been pushing all along? I would argue that that is what their rhetoric says but that is not what the plans have brought about. The "stay the course plan" means more terrorist created and more sympathizers everyday. We must turn our attention back to Osama Bin Laden. We must turn our military attention back to Afghanistan and Pakistan. We must turn Iraq back over to the Iraqi people. We must set a timeline for withdrawal and the end of the occupation of Iraq.

If anyone believes that the terrorist networks are not going to claim victory in Iraq no matter how long we are there they are wrong. It seems to me the longer we are in Iraq the worse the civil war will get and the more our troops will be distracted from the small percentage of people that actually are terrorist in that country now. Let the Iraqi's deal with the terrorist. We need to tell the Sunnis, Shiites, and the Kurds that their first order of business before they can find peace among each other is to eliminate their common enemy.

We need to show them that anyone who kills civilians must be dealt with harshly. Whether that be a Shiite death squad, Sunni attack on a Shiite mosque, or actual terrorist. The Sunnis believe that right now the American occupiers are propping up the Shiite death squads and allowing them to commit murder. We need to leave and let the Iraqi military deal with Shiite death squads. Everyone needs to know that the military is not going to look at whether someone is Shiite or Sunni but what they have done. So the question for Iraq is how do we get these radicals out of the government? We need to let them know and get through to them that they are all Iraqis first and Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds second.

Unfortunately, I do not think this will ever happen no matter how long we stay in this country, no matter how long we train their military, no matter how much money we dump into this situation.

To be continued...