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What I said was that it doesn't matter, or shouldn't, because we are there for our national interest, not his. If he's helping, great! If he's not, doesn't matter; our national interest still requires preventing Iraq from becoming a full-on terror haven.

So we should keep dumping everything we have into solidifying a government that seems to have no regard for the work we're doing or the sacrifices we've made. You keep saying it's for our national interest. Great. The immediate effects of EVERYTHING we do here is for Iraqi national interests (interests that, enshallah, will jive with our own). You are saying that it doesn't matter if he's a roadblock. So we're going to keep pouring money and lives into this place, regardless if they're willing to accept the help? It's one thing for these people to be incredibly callous and ungrateful for what we've done for them (and they are), but it's a whole other thing to expect us to shrug it off and keep going at it with smiles on our faces.

I don’t think you two are really at odds.

We need to OPENLY admit that our national interest is (perhaps equally, but maybe not) divided between the Iraq beach-head in our genuine “WOT” and the oil supply, and that the “democracy” thing is in reality little more than a talking point.

So the military mission is justified on those 2 points (WOT/oil), but in true feelgood fashion is diverted to the talking-point excessively.

MEDCAP type projects are somewhat productive and should surely be pursued. But this apparent near-total building and rehab of any and all infrastructure is nonsense, at least if you aren’t an employee or stockholder in the corporate maze that manages the money pit which has resulted in Iraq from the moment Bush landed on the flat-top off the California coast in 2003. My God! There are probably nearly as many non-DoD Americans in Iraq as there are GI’s, and almost every single one of them are part of cost-plus contracts that also include the funding for the work-products of these infrastructure projects.

Given the degree of actual military mission diversion just to secure these projects and worse yet the military diversion into non-military LABOR heaped upon GI’s, it seems as if it might be that a whole lotta casualties and money attributed to the military mission is really due to this infrastructure bit. Seems wrong to me. Babysitting for corporate civilians and wiping iraqi butts and doing iraqi dirty work is NOT a real military mission.

Just one quick example.....roadside IED’s.......how many casualties are generated while hauling freight or military security to these infrastructure projects as distinct from a true military mission? I can only guess, and I guess that it is a shocking and unacceptable percentage.

Part of my perspective is taken from Iraq Veterans who are now showing up in larger numbers in the VA Medical Center to which I go 12-15 times a year.......I seek them out in waiting and smoking areas. They are not disloyal or unpatriotic or unwilling to do the job. They don’y write articles or get trotted onstage by right or left type groups. They are average American GI’s who for whatever reason are no longer on active duty. They are not wannabes, and they are not cowards. In almost every case, it takes some doing and finesse on my part to experience the privelege of learning their opinion based upon their first-hand observations and experiences.

Pardon my rant, I didn’t intend it to be so long. I’d best hit the button before I change my mind.

So we should keep dumping everything we have into solidifying a government that seems to have no regard for the work we're doing or the sacrifices we've made.

It's worse than that.

There's nothing to solidify.

Kill as many bad guys as we can for as long as we can.

That's the game, now.

So we should keep dumping everything we have into solidifying a government that seems to have no regard for the work we're doing or the sacrifices we've made.

It's worse than that.

There's nothing to solidify.

Kill as many bad guys as we can for as long as we can.

That's the game, now.

So we should keep dumping everything we have into solidifying a government that seems to have no regard for the work we're doing or the sacrifices we've made.

We're not doing this to get "regard" or a pat on the back. We're doing this because we find the notion of a failed-state, or a terror-supporting dictator rising to power, in Iraq unacceptable to our national security.

You keep saying it's for our national interest.

Well it had better be; if it's not, what the heck are we doing there?

The immediate effects of EVERYTHING we do here is for Iraqi national interests

Does that include our congressmen openly musing about changing their elected government?

You are saying that it doesn't matter if he's a roadblock.

It makes it more difficult. It doesn't change our objectives.

So we're going to keep pouring money and lives into this place, regardless if they're willing to accept the help?

Yes, I reckon, at least as long as we continue to find it unacceptable to allow Iraq to devolve into a failed-state, or for a charismatic terror-linked dictator to rise to power.

it's a whole other thing to expect us to shrug it off and keep going at it with smiles on our faces.

Don't smile then.