I find it interesting to watch the American conservative brainwashing of this entire event. You seem, like others, to have bought the ticket that this war is basically GOOD because we are routing out the "extremists" in the Middle East....that somehow by killing them and destroying their homes that we will win their respect.

You entirely ignore that Bush had this planned early on and manipulated the intelligence to go along with his pre-emptive plans. (The papers have surfaced concluding this.) You also seem to ignore that his REASON to go into Iraq was because they had WMD and were going to kill us all. That they were in bed with Osama Bin laden and were therefore guilty of 9/11.
None of that is true.

You said >"Bush does not have a short term plan for victory because any plan that would give the appearance of victory is as unacceptable as torture."

Well yeah........
He NEVER had a plan other than invasion.
AMERICA STRIKES FIRST. Period.
Secure the oil fields, raid the banks, go through hundreds of thousands of Iraqis by force asking them "Are you with us or against us?"

Abu Garaib was another embarassment for us. The brutality seemed sanctioned from on high (it was), and has made us the moral losers in this conflict.
And you want a "cultural victory" from Western civilization??
We have no business over there in the first place!

This proselitizing is nothing more than one man's religion being superior to another man's religion.
The reason we have the amazing firepower we do, is to USE IT in case of a threat. In all forms, we were protected before this war started.
Going through millions of people checking to see if they are "terrorists" only incurs more.