This week’s ClickBack questions, which readers respond to on the BDN Web site, focus on national and local issues. To participate, go to bangordailynews.com and click on the ClickBack logo (registration is required, but the BDN does not share the information with third parties), and share your views. Some of the responses posted will be printed on the OpEd page in Friday’s edition of the newspaper.

With predictions of a deep and long national recession looming, are the financial needs here at home reason enough for the U.S. to withdraw troops from Iraq?

The fifth anniversary of the invasion will be marked on Wednesday. The U.S. has spent $3.3 trillion to invade, occupy and police Iraq, substantially more than the $50 billion the Bush administration estimated in 2003. Whether or not the mission is noble, is there a point at which pressing financial needs in Maine and the U.S. are more critical, and dictate a reallocation of the money?

When will policymakers finally know that it is time to bring the troops home?

Should candidates for elected office be judged by the company they keep?

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is being criticized for statements made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the pastor of the church he attends in Chicago. Wright reportedly gave sermons that “damned” the United States. Is it fair to link Sen. Obama with Wright? Where do you draw the line? If a candidate’s auto mechanic is charged with sex abuse, is the candidate implicated?

Last week, the state Department of Education announced the nominees for the Teacher of the Year honor, and none was from schools north of Lewiston; should central and northern Maine be insulted?

Each individual school is encouraged to forward the name of one teacher to the superintendent, Education Commissioner Susan Gendron has said, and superintendents then forward a nominee to the state department. But what happened then? Why are there no nominees from our neck of the woods? Were financially strapped school districts in central, northern and eastern Maine too busy filling out consolidation paperwork to deal with the nominee forms?

Should sex offenders be forced to live on a deserted island?

The Hancock County prosecutor doesn’t want Travis White, who served six years in prison for molesting young boys, to return to his parents’ home in Bucksport, so he has been living at a homeless shelter. Is this safe for the community? Where should sex offenders go when they get out of jail?