Please be reminded that if we had never attacked Iraq at all, if we had simply engaged al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere, a war approved by many liberals, we would very likely still have the same prisoner situations in Afghanistan and Guantanamo. Still have interrogated them for information.

There is no "plan" to end the war on terror other than to defeat them on every front we can, including warfare, police actions in many countries, interdiction of arms, attacks on their financial holdings, and other methods. All of these things are being done, and by many nations.

Maybe it won't go away, much like crime doesn't go away. Sorry, but this situation goes well beyond Bush, much as you might like to think that somehow bin Laden and the many others like him would have simply given up if Al Gore were president. Please be reminded that 9/11 was planned and its beginnings carried out while Bush was still governor of Texas.

The bind is bipartisan.

So now what? Release the prisoners? Hold them in perpetuity and feed them until they die of old age?

As I have asked other times, how many American lives are worth America's honor? That question is not rhetorical. I believe it has a real answer, and it isn't zero. But know that going in.

We are already paying in American lives for pursuing a war where we attempt to cause as little civilian damage and casualties as possible. Bombing Iraq and Syria into gravel would have resulted in few or no U.S. casualties.

I believe that the precision war is the way to go, although I am sorry that this course trades soldiers and Marines for Iraqi citizens. But then I'm not screeching the casualty numbers like some morbid parrot, either, as though somehow the casualties mean defeat and failure.

If we stop interrogating the prisoners, and something gets past us, will you be standing in line to berate our intelligence agencies for "missing it?" Or will you accept that as one price to be paid to do things in a civilized way?

Pacifists are not the same things as cowards. Many have died because they would not take up arms. They knew and accepted the trade-off. Will you?