Tom, I never disputed that our military isn't the finest in the world and I have no idea why you keep bringing this up. My contention is simply that, no matter how well-trained the force is, if you have a protracted engagement in a foreign country, atrocities like we're seeing are inevitable and that the tendency is for them to become worse and more frequent the longer you stay.

What ends up happening then is that all your good deeds and progress that you so deftly point out from the blogs you cite, are basically rendered moot and the overall impression tends to become that we're a brutal and oppressive nation. Until you begin to understand that global reality, all of your talking points become mere fluff. You can scream your praise of the military from the highest rooftops and it'll fall on deaf ears to the only people that this matters to - the Iraqi civilians.

I would hope that our fighting forces are ambassadors of good will in the lands they occupy but remember that isn't their primary function. Their main training is in how to kill people and protect their fellow soldiers. Any other goal must be incidental to that primary objective and that's where you get conflicted human beings.

Let me make this clear to you again. There are good and benevolent people in our armed forces. From my own experience, they do not make up the majority of the "grunt" forces, the guys with the boots and rifles. They tend to be the support staff, the guys less likely to be busting down Iraqi doors with adrenaline pumping and survival instincts in full force. These kind-hearted people do make a positive difference and create good will towards America. One atrocity, as we've seen recently, takes that good will and buries it deep into the background as the rage builds in the occupied population.

We really are not far apart here Tom. The only difference as I see it is that you know we have a serious problem from these atrocities but you're unwilling to admit it because you somehow believe you'll lose political capital in this debate. Tom, I could care less about which party wins and loses here. The debate here is about human life and a loss of our national soul.

We are clearly going down the same path as Vietnam. It tastes the same, feels the same, and I believe will have the same tragic ending. No amount of military training or committment can stop this slide and the sooner we admit our dilemna, cut our losses, and leave Iraq to figure this out on its own, the better. It doesn't feel good coming to this conclusion but our country became stronger when we realized this in Vietnam even though we suffered a national embarassment. Vietnam became better as well and now functions without violence and ethnic strife even though the naysayers envisioned dominos falling faster than they could be picked back up.

Art