You know, I'd love to discuss this with you, but it is impossible to deal with you on any basis other than "this war sucks and we should never have gotten into it." That's a valid position to start a debate, I suppose, but whenever I try to deal with where things would have gone if we had explored alternatives, or even if there were plausible alternatives over the long run, or if there are any alternatives now, it all breaks down again.

You have declared, possibly on a metaphysical basis, that this war is completely unwinnable. Fine. Now what? You have no place else to go. You can keep repeating the same stuff over and over again, I suppose. Seize on each setback as proof of your position, and ignore any progress.

I think this war is winnable. Not a certainty by any means, but winnable. I think the elections will go better than people think, despite what might be a terrible toll on the voters.

This war has been going on for less than two years. The U.S. entered WWII in December of 1941. It didn't end until May of 1945. There are a lot of steps left before we can declare victory. By the same token, you can't declare defeat until those steps are taken either.

I don't know where you get your news on the war. I track dozens of different sources over the course of a week, mainstream and otherwise, including feeds from the military, Iraq, overseas, and other places. Not all are pro-war by any means. Many have axes to grind. A lot of them, unlike the New York Times, don't pretend otherwise. You can sneer about the blogs, but many of the writers I read are a hell of a lot more knowledgable than you are, or me for that matter. Unlike people like Bowser, I think I can learn from others. I've applied my intelligence to the information, and come to conclusions on a case-by-case basis. I suppose I could resent being called a mindless idiot for not seeing what you see as the only obvious truth, but I suppose you have nothing else to work with.

I'm not speaking for you, or for Donald, or others here, but you can't pretend that much of what we hear from the media about this war has no political undercurrent to it. This is almost a direct repeat of Vietnam, with many of the same characters and certainly many of the same tactics. It's easier to see nowadays, with the benefit of experience. The problem they have now is they aren't the only players in the game any more.

I learned a lot from this armor flap. I learned that a good simple lie will stick in the mind a lot more easily than a more complex truth. I'm keeping that in mind.