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.

No, the only way this happens is if the media, and those with an agenda, deliberately play it this way.

If there were half a dozen stories on the good our troops have been doing over the past year, and there are a hundred stories over the next month on this incident, gleefully picked up by Arabic newspapers, I know damn well the reason why.

The anti-war media has been waiting for the "Mai Lai" of this war with bated breath, and they will have printed a million column inches on this story by the time the investigation report comes out.

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.

Once again, if it were true that the good and benevolent people were few and far between, Haditha incidents would be happening twice a week. The numbers I pointed out do mean something. That Haditha and Abu Ghraib were freak occurences does mean something.

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.

And believe me, this is exactly what some people in the media are shooting for. Watch for it.

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.

I'm not going to presume to speak for you, but "another Vietnam" is what a lot of people are hoping for. It's what they would have been hoping for if we were only in Afghanistan. Their motives haven't changed much in forty years.

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.

There's one horrible difference in the current war. If we surrender and flee from the Middle East, this time they are going to come after us.