In Robert Anson Heinlein's novel, "Starship Troopers", the planet
Earth is run by a benevolent fascist government where only retired
volunteers for government service, including the military, have
access to the vote. In RAH's libertarian utopia, this governmental
system was installed by disgruntled returning veterans of foreign
conflicts who overthrew weak liberal democracies (the specifics of just
HOW this happened are never made clear) after a disastrous overseas
war. We are led to presume the vets were betrayed while they were
off on campaign, so they came back and set things straight by taking
over from their corrupt governments and installing regimes where only
those willing to sacrifice for the common good (the vets) have
access to the franchise. Heinlein doesn't go into too much detail, in fact, none of these events is explored in depth, just praised as inevitable. Presumably, vets on both sides of that future war collaborated with each other to form one global government that looks and sounds a lot like the USA in the fifties, except for the racism. Heinlein, for all his faults, was certainly no bigot. This volume, by the way, is required reading in at least one of our service academies. I draw no conclusions from this, but I'm not surprised, either.

This leads to some disturbing speculations on the current situation
in the MidEast. We now have an all-volunteer force, unlike during
Vietnam, of highly motivated and dedicated professional
warriors. In Viet Nam, the GIs knew how futile the war
was, and how little they wanted to be there, but now our forces are
finding that no matter how effectively they operate and defeat their
enemies in a stand-up fight, the situation as a whole just seems to
continue deteriorating, while their job gets harder, their tours get
extended, nothing seems to come of it and their casualties keep mounting. Like soldiers
everywhere, they only get to see the little piece of the war,
within the range of their weapons, and their frustration and anger
is mounting. Through no fault of their own, they can't win.
They must feel betrayed by a public they feel doesn't
care and by a treacherous movement back home they feel constantly undermines them and
makes their job harder. And I bet that's exactly what their leadership is telling them, just as those of us on the home front are constantly harangued by those who are desperate to come up with excuses why they can't win their war. There is a treacherous movement back home responsible for their failures, all right, it's the government that sent them.

During the Viet Nam era, the troops were often reminded of the
sedition of those back home who did not support them, but the GIs
knew better. They didn't believe their officers. With a rank and file
that considers themselves career military (not the "lifer vs short-
timer" mentality of the 60s armed forces)and with a chaplain corps
pushing conservative politics and evangelical religion, when this
war finally ends and those kids come home to ruined lives and
careers (and the probable consequences of our current
irresponsible wartime economic policies), they are going to be very
angry with the government and the people who they feel have betrayed
them. They'll be in the mood to blame someone.

Just as the Viet Vet generation formed a nucleus around which
liberal politics could grow in the 70s and 80s, the empty-handed
armies returning from Mesopotamia may very well form the core of a
right-wing movement which will last for decades, and which will feel
compelled to put themselves in opposition to the inevitable liberal
government which must inevitably replace the Bush/Neocon grip on
Washington: A liberal administration woefully ill-equipped to deal with the mess they are going to inherit when they take over.

The first thing to look for is a concerted effort by the remnants of
the defeated neoconservative movement to reach out to these GIs and
incorporate them and their anger into their brave new world. It's started already, and the Petraeus/Betrayus boogaloo is laying the groundwork. This will be pointed out to us for decades as evidence of how the "Democrat Party" dissed the troops, and it will become increasingly more obvious as the society gets further and further in time from the actual events, a new generation starts to take over, and those who actually experienced the incident begin to disperse in time and space. And of course, the inevitable rewrite of history will follow. Mark it well, in a few decades this isolated blunder will be portrayed as a nationwide conspiracy.
It's happened before, remember how all those GIs were spit on by the hippies when they returned from SE Asia? It's an urban myth that seemed to grow with the telling, even though most of those who actually served in Vietnam returned to oppose the war (yes, kids, they were one and the same: spitter and spittee were the same guy, the VVAW.) The chroniclers of the alleged spitfest never mention that part. We've argued this one in this forum before and no doubt the exquisitely documented rebuttals will soon show up here again. I really don't care, I've already made my response and I stand by it: I was there, I didn't happen to me, it didn't happen to anyone I knew, and it didn't happen to anyone they knew.
The Right has lost the war in Iraq. Without any help from the Left. All
by themselves. They picked the fight, the weapons, the time and place,
controlled the timetable, had no meaningful political opposition at
home, went in with every advantage and preparation, with the best advice
in the world (which they, of course, ignored) and they STILL managed to lose the war.

They picked a two-bit country with no armed forces to speak of, one which
we had been bombing and blockading and collecting intelligence on for
years and which we had already defeated catastrophically once before.
They picked a country whose people were desperate for change and one
the neighbors hated. And after five years, the best they can come up
with is "the rate at which things are going down the toilet isn't
increasing as fast as it could be". Progress can be calculated only if you take enough derivatives.

For five years I've been watching this inept gang of blow-dried wimps,
business major wannabees and student council rejects shoot themselves in
the foot and step on their dicks trying to take out a mob of ignorant raghead fanatics and the best they can do is order our boys to march around in straight lines and wear red
coats while the bad guys hide behind rocks and trees and pick em off.
And they have the audacity to complain that "the left wants us to
lose in Iraq".

And now, when after years of telling us there's a light at the end of
the tunnel, that the end is in sight, that the enemy is on the verge of collapse, that we are winning the battle for hearts and minds, when it is clear that things are as hopeless as ever, when the only breadcrumb success they can point to only came after they got
rid of their sleazeball know-it-all Rumsfeld and adopted the plan
forced on them by their liberal opponents; now, when the people we are fighting
to protect still are totally unwilling or incapable of helping themselves, now, they
have the unmitigated gall, the cast-iron cojones, to delay the war so the next
administration will have to clean up the mess they leave behind. They can't win it, they won't end it, but they can sure as hell abandon it. Their cynicism and treachery is inconceivable and unprecedented.

No, the Left doesn't want to lose in Iraq. But I'll tell you what: the
Right can keep this war going for another year. If it can't win it by
then, then perhaps it should just go away and shut the hell up once and
for all. I'm really tired of their excuses and their fingerpointing and their lies.
Stop changing the subject, Righties, the issue is not whether or not we should be in Iraq, at least at one time, long ago, that may have been a debatable question. What really matters now is whether or not you can win this war, or more precisely, if anyone can win it after the mess you've made of it. And there is no debate whatsoever there: you've had five years to convince the country, the world, and history that you are simply too stupid and incompetent and corrupt to pull it off. You've certainly convinced me.

Go back to what you're really good at, selling each other pizza and sniffing drainpipes.