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Doing whatever it takes to win...

That is a loaded statement that needs to be explained. I do not think you can just say that and drive on by.

As you are aware, we can fight the war two ways. We can fight a limited war, in a political strait jacket that is designed to do the following: 1) Topple Saddam from power. 2) Not alienate a very easily humiliated and alienatable people. 3) Set up an Iraqi government as a model for other governments in the region that the people can see and hopefully achieve for themselves through bloodless revolution. 4) Teach them to defend themselves against not only the insurgents that have come, but from the sectarianism that has always been a part of Iraq due to the Shi'ite majority and the Sunni sense of self-importance, and the Kurdish dynamic. 5) To prove ourselves the friends of governments who have supported us like Qatar and Bahrain, Jordan, and U.A.E.

OR...

We can forget the five objectives and declare total war on the region, fight friend and foe alike and get after them like Grant did the South and Eisenhower did the Nazis and McArthur did the Japanese.

Those are your options.

We are not involved in a long drawn out colonial policing operation. What is happening now is necessary to meet those five objectives.

Again...win what? We are winning... the five objectives are being met. I didn't know there was a time table to victory. No army, no matter how great, can meet a predetermined time table so that folks back home can stop being impatient. It's war, man...and we are winning.

I do realize life isn't a video game where you can call a time out. Americans are asking though, what is our criterion for victory? All they're seeing is endless violence in Iraq and little in the way of progress towards an effective government and security on the ground. So they can be forgiven for deciding they've had enough. The President needs to tell the American people what terms he would view as a victory there. Its either that or we're going to be departing from there as soon as political circumstances make such a move propitious.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus