Letter from the front

The end game the guy is suggesting is another Egypt. Which in the great, ambiguous scheme of geo-politics would not be such a bad thing. Only it's something that could have been put in place in 2003. So after hundreds of billions and thousands of lives, there ain't no omelet of a new democratic dawn in the Middle East, only the broken eggs of carnage and corpses. And the cook is still the clueless idiot spilling someone else's treasure...

SteveM: " the cook is still the clueless idiot spilling someone else's treasure " Wow. I wish the "cook" was as articulate and perspicacious as this soldier. I wonder what a world of difference it would have made.

What is perspicacious? I have to go look that up. I am an Arabic language specialist, so picked up some regional knowledge on the way.
I am not currently in Iraq (and I am also not a guy), but I will be going back for my second deployment soon. Last time I just sat on the F.O.B. doing my job, we'll see how this time goes. We're short a few guys and I won't have that luxury this go 'round. Thank you for your kind words.

I'm sorry armchair pessimist. Service members are good people, but not "better than any of us." As if we d be a better country if we had an army of 150 million imbued with marshal culture. It's that kind of thinking that the Bush administration embraced that resulted in an implied policy of "Military Exceptionalism". I.e., all that is good and true and noble has a military pedigree. All geo-political problems can be addressed with a military solution. So the discounting of foreign allies, non-military agencies, non-governmental organizations. Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al marginalized all of them. Bush speaks almost exclusively at military bases or in front of veterans organizations. He s a coward hiding behind that military cloak. Why doesn t he go to Manhattan or Chicago or Boston or Madison or Seattle and engage those citizens? At least I think they are citizens because they pay taxes and vote. But they don t count as such in Bush s - Rove s eyes because they re not military and have no standing. And the Democrats in Congress had no standing, no need to know prior to the November elections. And the sad thing is that it s the people in the military who have to pay the price for Bush s distorted understanding of the limitations of what they do for a living. This administration stinks. I just can t wait till it s over

Well, in all wars through Vietnam, we had a draft and everyone was called up inevitably and equally. Unless you were defered after being (based on exceptional and rare scholarship) rewarded as a Rhodes scholar to Oxford as was Bill Clinton. Or, failing intellectual excellence,(or even good grades) had "Daddy-OH!" connections like our present President.
It helps when everyone is asked to put their money where their mouth is. It makes sacrifice real, and makes being vested in the American dream more likely/possible/probable. I believe a very real part of the problem is that we have become a country where we HOPE enough people 'volunteer' to become involved and enlist in the nation's defense. After Vietnam, this became the way because my generation was duped. We knew it then and lived long enough to see the Secretary of Defense McNamara (the Rumsfeld/Cheney of his day)and the icon general Westmoreland admit it. Nearly 60,000 dead American soldiers later. We're still paying the price in countless ways. Small wonder the country was so disengaged regarding Iraq for so long...probably 4 years..., when the war was no more part of people's daily 'reality' than Gwenyth Paltrow's children. In fact, this war touches relatively few Americans still, despite their breast-beating piety. And that is one reason I read AnotherBeliever with interest and affection. I too believe Petraeus is a stunning model. But the debate is not about this man, but rather his Commander-in-Chief and his nepotisical team of 'I've known you for years and therefore I know your heart and I'm loyal and trust you' crony advisors.

Re: cs comments It became a Republican war when Bush (Rove) decided (early on) to marginalize the Democrats (both politicians and voters) as stakeholders when planning the strategy for its evolving execution. I thought it was pathetic when Bush invited the Democratic congressional leadership to lunch at the White House in November after they had won majorities. He should have been doing that over the last four years! The entire complement of congressional leadership should have been invited to the White House at least once a month for information sharing about how the war was being conducted. Do you think there would be the same level of antipathy by the Democratic leadership towards Bush if he had done that? If he had co-opted them as political partners into the one great thing that should have unified all Americans?
Not that the Republican congressional leaders should not also help shape political strategy, that would be expected. But the Republican congress abdicated its oversight responsibility totally when it was in control. And by marginalizing the Democrats, Bush lost whatever unity that was created at the start of the effort. And about those other Blue State people (citizens, voters, taxpayers) in Manhattan, Madison, Seattle, etc., the Republican machine not only marginalized them, it demonized them. They were less American and less entitled to voice their opinion. When America is at war, it s the political leadership s obligation to recruit all Americans into a national struggle through dialog and persuasion. Bush cannot/did not do that. He never reached out. Instead, he spoke to only one half of America at VFW conventions and ignored the other. They became the other , the enemy. Administration hacks like Cheney reinforced that division by going on TV and calling half of America traitors. That s what made it a Republican war. I have no illusions about the Democrats. Their capacity to be stupid and feckless also has no bounds. So this is the political landscape that we live in. And that s why this war is messed up.

>And I also realize the Bush has politicized the military.
This kind of comment reveals a mind either disfunctional or not at work due to excess bile.

First thing, thank you anotherbeliever for your service. Let me toss a wrench into the gears of this conversation. Leaving aside my pleasure at engaging conservatives and obvious partisanship for a minute let's think about business management of today and how it relates to this war. I see no difference from Rumsfeld-Cheney-Bush's attitude of first we go to war and then we'll fix what's broken as it comes up attitude to that of AT&T or SBC if you will and their approach to fiber optic service to the home. In both cases we have the attitude of us being smart enough because we came up with the idea to handle anything that comes up. It's about the position that management is about people management and not about idea management. Management can do anything because they can find the right people for the job and those people will find the technology to make it happen. It's a recipe for disaster. It doesn't matter if it's Vonage or it's the Defense Department. It doesn't matter if it's Kenneth Lay or Karl Rove, there's more to it than people manipulation.