Obama: Shift troops to fight al-Qaida

The U.S. should shift troops from Iraq to pursue al-Qaida along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said Saturday.

He said President Bush's war-fighting policies have left the United States at greater risk from terrorists. The first-term Illinois senator said decisions by the Republican president had allowed Osama bin Laden and his deputies to elude capture.

"We cannot win a war against the terrorists if we're on the wrong battlefield," Obama said. "America must urgently begin deploying from Iraq and take the fight more effectively to the enemy's home by destroying al-Qaida's leadership along the Afghan-Pakistan border, eliminating their command and control networks and disrupting their funding."

This is what all the Democratic candidates need to be saying. The fact is that the war in Iraq has diverted us from the real enemy while creating hundreds of thousands more. Nothing makes me want to scream more than those who keep talking about terrorists now in Iraq. They always forget to mention that they were not there until we invaded. Our Middle East policies are the reason for their intense hatred for us. If you believe that they simply hate us for our freedom then you are simply unable to understand the world around us. Unfortunately people in that category include this dim witted President.