The unpleasant fact that no one wants to face is that there is no exit strategy. We are not fighting a war, where there is a specific political entity that can be defeated, like the Nazis or the Empire of Japan. What we are doing is more like fighting criminals, where there is a constant supply as long as there is a human race.

Go to a police station, and ask them, "what is your exit strategy? At what point will you have stopped crime, so you can all go home?"

See the point?

There is actually no point at which someone can say, "we have stopped terrorism," any more than a rational person can find a point at which you can say, "we have stopped street crime." We are no longer dealing with formal armies, but with criminals. They have connections with formal governments, and we can use that, but they are still independent of nations and states.

The only thing you can do is keep stopping terrorists and criminals, using police actions where you can and military action where you need to, and then go on to stop the ones that take their place. This is NOT a waste of resources and effort, or even a waste of our soldiers' lives. There is a real victory in being able to say, "we stopped this terrorist act," or "we stopped this crime and captured this particular criminal." Real progress can be made, and real good can be done.

But that does not mean there is an "exit strategy," where everyone can just fold up and go home, and stop worrying about it.

Bush knows this. He has been trying to prep Americans on a "long battle," but has not come out and specifically said that we may never be out of the woods entirely. The Democrats suspect this, but don't have the philosophical background to deal with it, other than to use it as a hammer to smack the Republicans.

We have taken on the role of World Policeman. Whether or not this is a good thing is something that can be argued forever. As a libertarian, it makes me squeamish to say the least. We probably didn't have any choice in the matter, since there seems to be no one else willing or able to do the job, and we are being attacked and killed.

World Policeman is not a job you can just drop.

Jerry Pournelle has done some thinking on "Republic and Empire" on his own web page. Some interesting stuff.