There are quick and dirty ways to stop the insurgency, mostly involving considerably more ruthlessness in obliterating their base areas, civilians and all. Carpet bombing and "highways of death" from aerial bombardment work great, and have no nasty casualties on our side.

The lives we are losing are an inevitable consequence of a different way of doing things, guarding the civilian population as much as possible.

In short, we are trading our military lives for Iraq civilian lives. We'll see if this turns out to be worth it or not.

As far as finally defeating the insurgency, I don't have enough information, and most of the information I need the military would never release. Where are the car bombs being made? Locally, or somewhere other than the target area? What type of explosives are being used, "found" explosives, or imported fancy stuff? Are the bombs of similar manufacture, or just multiple different kludges?

In short, are they doing the forensics necessary to figure out where the enemy local supply line is? Whether we are dealing with an organization, or just a bunch of individual cells?

What about Syria, obviously up to its neck in this?

I can't believe our military isn't working on these things.

And I find it extraordinarily difficult to believe that John Kerry, despite having Served In Vietnam, would be having any better luck defeating the insurgency than Bush is.