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I agree with some of your comments, especially the one about family members in the service. I have one too. I have a different take about pulling out however.

All wars end. In one year, two years, 100 or more. The Shiites in the south of Iraq have experienced one war and occupation after another for 1400 years, being invaded by powers from the North (The Ottoman Turks), the West (The Syrians, Judeans, the Brits, Americans), the South (The old powers of the Gulf), and the East (The Persians). If you read your history or the Bible people of the Old Testament (the current Jewish enemies of jihadists) once ruled the land between the Mediteranean and the Tigris. The Kurds in the north have had a similar period of conquests and occupations. It is amazing to me that the Iraqi Shiites and Kurds have proven to be so resilient in maintaining their ethnic identity in the face of such odds, much like the Israelites have done for a much longer time. I would note that both Abraham & Isaac from the Bible are buried near the city of Najif.

I relate the above for background as a luke-warm supporter of the 2nd Iraq war. Being a pragmatist I did not agree at all to get into a second war with Sadam before it started, however, once it started it becomes necessary to win it. I do not wish to have a repeat of the Kennedy-Johnson-Nixon managed war in Vietnam. We lost our credibility in the first Gulf war when we failed to protect the Kurds and the Shiites from Sadam's wrath. The Kurds finally woke up after we initiated the No-Fly zone in the North, decided to put aside their internal differences and fight together to hold off the armies of Sadam. The Kurd have advantages the Shiites did not have back in 1991 and beyond. First they only had two competing factions, good intelligence, and they have arguably the best and boldest fighting group in the region, not withstanding a lack of sophisticated equipment, outside of Israel and Turkey. The Shiites have many factions and no organized militia for the region. The Sunni tribes in Iraq, while generally causing mayhem from some factions, will eventually be overwhelmed by the Kurds and Shiites for control of the country. The payback for the Sunni dominated groups for slaughtering 1,000s of Kurds and Shiites will be brutal, much more so when the coalition troops finally depart. It may hurt some to say it but I wish the Kurds and Shiites do well in purging the Sunni and terrorist factions by what ever means necessary. You can imagine what the reaction would be like here at home if some jihadist group manage to kill more than a million people in the USA, like Sadam & his thugs have done in Iraq. The region south of Basra is very anti-Iran, having been divested by the Iraq/Iran war. Basra itself is a basket case, now controlled by Mullahs who have brought in an Iraq mini-version of the religious police. The highways between Basra and Bagdad are a goldmine for kidnappers, thieves and jihadists looking to create mayhem. Basra is a complicated case however, and other bloggers, including the late Steven Vincent, who was the journalist recently murdered in Iraq, have noted that the corrupt Mullahs' reign of Taliban-lite in Basra may not last. However, as Steven relates at his blog, the status of women in Iraq is no better than it was before Sadam was dispatched, and may be worse. In a story he relates about an Arab man in a cafe who was watching some scantily clad ladies on a TV screen, and happened to glance toward Steve and then make an ugly stare at the woman who was Steve's translater, as if she did not have a right to exist in that place while he was having his jollies at the bar. See Steve's blog In the Red Zone for more gripping story tales. His tale of a US Captain and his conversion with his Iraqi female interpretor is fascinating to say the least. It shows particularly well how multi-culturalism has crept into our own military, as it has been doing for a long time now.

I am deeply saddened by the loss of our soldiers in Iraq this week. I live near Camp Pendleton in California, and I know some officers from the base. I can tell you that the tempo the Marines are being asked to keep up, being deployed again and again for long periods of time is a serious problem. We can not keep this tempo up for much longer without hollowing out the force. The military will tell you for public consumption that we should not bring back the draft. If you talk privately to many in the military, including my own brother, they relate a different story, where many support bringing back the draft. They deeply resent the MSM's constant bashing of the troops, repeating similar story lines about Southeast Asia a generation ago. Armchair generals from both sides of the aisle in Congress do not impress them either. They would like to see some of those college educated, 2nd generation leftist yuppies put some boots on, put them on patrol in a hot spot in the Sunni Triangle, to see if their pants are still dry when they meet up with a band of thugs with AK-47's.

When do we pull out of Iraq. When we win, by whatever means necessary. I do not give a whit about any border with Iraq. If there a terrorist camps and transit points for jahadists in Syria as gateways to Iraq take them out, pure and simple. President Bush should keep his pledge, to hunt down the terrorists wherever they are, and any state that gives them safe harbor is fair game, including Syria and Iran.

God Bless Our Troops and Steven Vincent, true heroes of America

When do we pull out of Iraq. When we win, by whatever means necessary. I do not give a whit about any border with Iraq. If there a terrorist camps and transit points for jahadists in Syria as gateways to Iraq take them out, pure and simple. President Bush should keep his pledge, to hunt down the terrorists wherever they are, and any state that gives them safe harbor is fair game, including Syria and Iran.

I support the necessary incursions into places like Syria. However, the question is how will President Bush has what it takes to get into there. Just imagine media being all over this, it would make the conflict in Iraq appear to be getting worse rather than better. Even though we are winning the war in Iraq militarily, we do not want to lose the war through the political process in the States. I hate the Vietnam comparasion but we cannot forget the lessons.

Simply put, America does not have stomach for extended conflict if they do not think it would threaten the homeland. (Through ironically, if we left Iraq today, our national security will get worse Terrorists will take advantage of anarchy in Iraq and establish headquarters there. Then that means after a massive terrorist attack on U.S. soil, we would go back to Iraq. Then we will have to start all over again.)