Why we Leave

Both Hillary and Obama share a sweeping vision of a country where everyone has healthcare, education is a priority, and war is a last resort. They look to the future, and look to it with great hope. And more importantly they have a clarity of mind about where America has gone right, and where it has detoured disastrously.
John Mccain, on the other hand, is trapped in the past, trapped in an old way of thinking. John Mccain fought valiantly in Vietnam and served his country with honor and fortitude. But Mr. Mccain's experience in the Vietnam war taught him the wrong lessons, and he is still unable to see the Vietnam War for what it was, a mistake from the beginning. In Mccain's mind the mistake of the Vietnam war was that we did not finish the job.
The real mistake of Vietnam was not losing the war, but waging the war at all. America's ideological fixation on defeating Communism blinded us to the correct course of action. We mistook self-interested corrupt leaders as allies, merely because they hated Communism. And 50,000 men and women died for a cause which was later won, non-violently, through capitalism.
Vietnam was an unnecessary war based on no threat to America, as is Iraq. There are many differences but that much they share in common. The end result will be the same as well. Iraq will be won not with bombs but with education, not with killing but with convincing. This is an ideological battle and America is on the right side.
The problem is that Mccain has too much pride, and his pride was hurt when America didn't "win" in Vietnam. He talks about "winning" in Iraq all the time and doesn't realize that there is no victory when the population, as in Vietnam, hates your presence in the region. He stated that he would be fine with an American troop presence for 100 years in Iraq. Of course he did not mean that he would be happy with a 100-year-war, he meant that if they were there not in a combat capacity it could be indefinite. But that is the point. The population there resents the American presence. I.E. if there is an American presence there will be resentment and conflict.
Senator Joe Biden bravely said that it would be a "moral failure" for America to withdraw from Iraq, but that we need to do it anyway. More lives lost, and more misery suffered in Iraq not make this wrong war right. America needs to admit our terrible error and leave the region, so that the healing can begin. It is not about winning or losing the war in Iraq, what is important is ending it.
Both Obama and Hillary will begin that process while Mccain sees no immediacy in the need to leave. In November we all need to send a clear message to the world: We are bringing our troops home!