“U.S. strikes kill 70 Iraq rebels’”

“U.S. bombs Iraq city amid fighting, 25 dead”

“The struggle for Iraq; names of the dead”

The headlines above are only just a small sampling of the daily headlines printed in newspapers, websites and news outlets across the world.

Anyone who opens a newspaper can turn to the international section and read about wins, losses, deaths, bombings and attacks that occur every day throughout Iraq.

But after two years of fighting and over 2,000 casualties -- 31 of those being from South Carolina -- some are raising the question: where do Americans stand now?

Senior David Goltra was happy the nation went to war originally. He said he was rallied by 9/11 yet calls the war now a “long and bloody stalemate.”

Goltra does not believe that U.S. troops should leave Iraq, though. He thinks the United States owes it to the Iraqi people “to stay and get the job done.”

Goltra’s opinion has changed since the onset of the war to the extent that now he believes Iraq was not an immediate threat to the U.S.

But, Goltra added, the U.S.’s ousting of Saddam Hussein was extremely beneficial as he compares Saddam to past leaders such as Hitler and Stalin.

Senior Amanda See, however, has not changed her opinion of the war since its onset.

See, who was living in Kuwait at the beginning of the conflict, felt the effects of the war first-hand.

The war causes “anti-Americanism, which is why our family left Kuwait,” she said.

She does agree with Goltra on the belief that troops should stay in Iraq.

“We can’t leave and go back on our promise,” she said.

There are those, though, that have not changed their opinions since the beginning of the war.

Senior Ben Halka said he believes the U.S. invasion was “to show who we were to the terrorists.”

He also thinks the war was of a good cause and the U.S. made the right decision, but he said, “We should get our troops out as soon as possible.”

With the recent vote in Iraq to accept a new constitution, Halka said a new democracy should be created by the Iraqis themselves.

The U.S. needs to “suggest democracy but not force democracy on them [Iraqis] for they need to develop [it] themselves,” he said.

Halka also said he “doesn’t see a point in helping rebuild,” reinforcing the idea that he believes U.S. troops have done their job and should begin to leave Iraq.

Senior Eldridge Rouse has a personal connection to the war -- a brother and an uncle currently fighting in Iraq.

Rouse himself plans to join the military after graduation.

When the war began, he was not worried about the preparedness of his family in the military but of the many other things that are out of their control.

He believes that if the nation sends the military to war then it is what the soldier “got into the military for” in the first place.

“As long as they [U.S. troops] are helping and making a difference for the people of Iraq (then the justification for being in Iraq is fulfilled),” he said.

Rouse did not agree completely with all of the reasons the current administration made to go to war and does not feel any disdain for those who sent his brother and uncle to war.

Rouse said he is able to talk to his brother two to three times a week via a direct phone number and believes that when someone chooses the path of the military, then they choose the risk of war.