Happy New Year :)

Been a super-busy day, thankfully it’s almost over. The whole week promises to be just like today, as I will continue to have to catch up from being off all last week, so please bear with me. Wanted to get this thread started so everyone can get in their New Years greetings and wishes. I’ll check back in later tonight with my own If you’re going to be out and about celebrating tonight, please be careful and drive safe!

Update 10:40 pm: I’m so tired, I’m not sure if I’ll make it til midnight. But one place where they partied after midnight into 2008 was in Baghdad, where this year they – and we – have seen more progress there since the fall of Baghdad, thanks in large part to General Petraeus, who should have been Time’s Man of the Year (sidenote: at least one publication saw fit to bestow him with the honor – h/t: ST reader GWR). It’s encouraging, and provides hope to everyone who believed from the start that overthrowing Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do. If things continue on this track, eventually GWB’s goal of a stable and secure Iraq, which would be a beacon of hope in the Middle East, will be realized, and slowly but surely, our brave men and women, who – along with their families – have sacrificed so much during this war, can finally start coming home.

We still have a long road ahead of us there, though, and trouble’s been brewing in Afghanistan for some time, so for now, the optimism many of us hold is of the cautious variety. Here’s praying that 2008 brings more good news out of Iraq, and that things turn around in Afghanistan, and that we get a president who knows how to continue to lead the fight against Islamofascism around the world. The year numbers might be changing, but the war on terror rages on.