[Archangelsk]

At the risk of sounding callous, losing one man a day is not a quagmire.

Yes, you're right, it's not. Until you're the company commander who has to write the letter to the next of kin.

[kabar]

Having served in Vietnam, I understand the emotional and visceral feelings of being shot at and seeing the broken bodies of your comrades, but wars are not won by being deterred from accomplishing your mission by such events. The commander of our troops in Iraq said that these deaths would have a minimal impact on operations. He has it right.

The media are making the daily loss of Americans in Iraq a cause celebre to feed the impression that we are in a quagmire ala Vietnam or even Somalia. We are also still losing troops in Afghanistan. Are things getting better in Afghanistan and Iraq? I think they are despite these isolated attacks.