This is just a little off topic.

Friends of mine in the Marine Corps are confused and angry over the fact that seeminglay all (save one - for that brave Army sergent) recommendations for the Medal of Honor have gone no-where. First Sergent Kasel and others have been recommended - but the process has come to a screeching stop. There are two ways to get the Medal. One is through the military chain of command and the other is through Congress.

Is this because there are new standards? One Marine rolled on a grenade to save his friends. Kasel rolled between a grenade and one of his men TWICE. And this was AFTER being shot. What the hell does it take? OR, is this because we don't want to acknowledge any heros?

Now Mark, you and I know that if Rummy resigns, the Iraqi forces will declare that they're ready to go it alone, and all the troops can come home.

Hey Mark, remember, before the war in Iraq, how the donk-turds were all moaning about N. Korea and Iran? I can remember them, especially the idiot Dean, saying, "why are we not invading Iran or N. Korea; they pose a greater threat than Iraq?" I can remember thinking how phony these arguments were, because they would whine just as loud over a planned military assault, no matter where. Well, I think it's safe to say that all that whining was just bluster--ever since the Sy Hersch b/s, they've been shaking their fingers at the administration over Iraq, warning the President not to use military force.

The culture of hypocrisy lives on...

I think you missed the point.

The questioning of Mr. Bush's designs on Iraq were not really calls for launching preemptive war, but calls for restraint on Iraq -- something that in retrospect seems to have been sage advice.

I do love the rhetoric about victory being "right around the corner" and idigenous forces "standing up." Just substitute "Vietnam" for "Iraq" and it is the same bull we heard back then.

Without U.S. troops and air the Iraqi "army" would last about as long as the ARVN troops did -- they'd collapse like a house of cards.

How long will you stay in denial?

One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed. The same edition of the paper quotes a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Reuel Marc Gerecht backed the American intervention. He now speaks of the bombing of the especially sacred Shiite mosque in Samara and what that has precipitated in the way of revenge. He concludes that “The bombing has completely demolished” what was being attempted — to bring Sunnis into the defense and interior ministries.

Our mission has failed because Iraqi animosities have proved uncontainable by an invading army of 130,000 Americans. The great human reserves that call for civil life haven't proved strong enough. No doubt they are latently there, but they have not been able to contend against the ice men who move about in the shadows with bombs and grenades and pistols.

The Iraqis we hear about are first indignant, and then infuriated, that Americans aren't on the scene to protect them and to punish the aggressors. And so they join the clothing merchant who says that everything is the fault of the Americans.

The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elucidates on the complaint against Americans. It is not only that the invaders are American, it is that they are "Zionists." It would not be surprising to learn from an anonymously cited American soldier that he can understand why Saddam Hussein was needed to keep the Sunnis and the Shiites from each others' throats.

A problem for American policymakers — for President Bush, ultimately — is to cope with the postulates and decide how to proceed.

One of these postulates, from the beginning, was that the Iraqi people, whatever their tribal differences, would suspend internal divisions in order to get on with life in a political structure that guaranteed them religious freedom.

The accompanying postulate was that the invading American army would succeed in training Iraqi soldiers and policymkers to cope with insurgents bent on violence.

This last did not happen. And the administration has, now, to cope with failure. It can defend itself historically, standing by the inherent reasonableness of the postulates. After all, they govern our policies in Latin America, in Africa, and in much of Asia. The failure in Iraq does not force us to generalize that violence and antidemocratic movements always prevail. It does call on us to adjust to the question, What do we do when we see that the postulates do not prevail — in the absence of interventionist measures (we used these against Hirohito and Hitler) which we simply are not prepared to take? It is healthier for the disillusioned American to concede that in one theater in the Mideast, the postulates didn't work. The alternative would be to abandon the postulates. To do that would be to register a kind of philosophical despair. The killer insurgents are not entitled to blow up the shrine of American idealism.

Mr. Bush has a very difficult internal problem here because to make the kind of concession that is strategically appropriate requires a mitigation of policies he has several times affirmed in high-flown pronouncements. His challenge is to persuade himself that he can submit to a historical reality without forswearing basic commitments in foreign policy.

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"One can't doubt that the American objective in Iraq has failed."
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Oh, yes, one can. Millions can. Millions do.

Let me suggest one hypothesis:

Let us begin by agreeing that the enemy is aware of history, and understands it. Let us say that the opposition in Iraq is aware of the fact that this country was led astray regarding Viet Nam---that even though we won battle after battle, killing hundreds of thousands of enemy soldiers, and had the North Viet Nam government putting out feelers for agreements from the United States to waive Nuremburg-type war criminal trials preparatory to surrender, we still ended up tucking our tails between our legs and slinking off, leaving millions (literally---MILLIONS) to be slaughtered, betraying our allies and our friends.

Now let us assume they are intelligent, even crafty.

Let us assume they have computers, access to the Internet, access to all US media, and thousands of loyalists here in the country with the ability to pass on information at will. This, I think, is a fair assumption. And of course, agreeing to it is agreeing that they have the ability to know the arguments being made here, the discussions, the objections to what we are doing in Iraq, and the general mood of the public.

Now, how could it be possible to accept those terms and still not believe that the enemy is tailoring its activiites precisely to appeal to the same demographic that forced the ignominous defeat in Viet Nam, the one they snatched from the jaws of victory?

Many of us believe that if we had not set the example of the entire country caving in to emotional manipulation back in the 70's, and were not following that up with evidence that the same kind of misleading and manipulative efforts are beginning to work now, as well, we would be much futher along in Iraq than we are now.

It is basic instinct to learn from experience. And if the experience of our recent enemies is that we, as a nation, lack the will to preservere, or intelligence or ability to discern the facts, or the character to set aside petty personal differences to strive for the greater good, we can count on them pushing us past the point where they have learned we will falter.

We won our earlier wars by sending the signals that we would not give up, that we could and would do whatever it took to win. We lost the last one, and the mental wars of terrorist attacks since then, by sending the message that we have short attention spans, little stomach for violence, are gullible regarding propaganda, and will bail out when the going gets tough.

I am proud, and relieved, that the administration and the military are fighting that more recent trend, and trying, over adamant opposition, to send the first message and not the latter.

And I believe that the proven eagerness of those who have substituted personal hatred for any form of reason has made it harder for the administration, and the military, to be as nimble and light on their feet as they should be, and probably would like to be. Because in this self-destructive political climate, where so many are so eager to sacrifice their own self-interest in favor of the fleeting satisfaction of getting a "gotcha" on those they hate, any overt change of direction is likely to have the unintended consequence of further weakening our position and further strengthening our opposition.