First: “it used to be that we believed in self determination rather than imposing our form of government on every country that we think needs to be improved.” This is a gross overexaggeration of the facts. There are numerous countries out there that could be improved. The U.S. is not imposing on “every” one of them.

As you are really just referring to Iraq here, you also miss the point that the Iraqis themselves have continually voted in support of that which you claim we’re imposing upon them: a representative democracy. In many cases they’ve done this at great personal risk, and in numbers that should make American voters ashamed. So your remark here is not only erroneous on two counts, but an insult to their bravery as well.

Next: “So, the “new” leader, of our “new” strategy, has lowered expectations.” No. WaPo chose to use the term “lowered”. Fallon is simply stating for the record what the left has refused to acknowledge since the President first spoke on the subject – when he warned that this process would be long and difficult, but necessary, because the alternatives were (and still are) unacceptable.

War is a constant process of shifting to compensate for the actions of the enemy. Those who judge this latest shift by the standards of Unreal Perfection (i.e., Bush’s critics) should temper their expectations.

The rest of your armchair “analysis” on the “new” strategy and the current status in Iraq completely misses the most important aspect of the conflict. That is that once Saddam was removed, Iraq became a battlefield in a much larger war: Radical Islam’s War against the Rest of the World. This is very different from any of the (irrelevant) scenarios you cited. You also conveniently left out the two most successful occupations – those of the Allies’ in Germany and Japan. Occupation of Japan lasted for seven years, with significant Allied influence following. Germany’s lasted much longer, and was also complicated by the Cold War. Still both occupations transformed their respective countries, and resulted in nations and cultures that have surpassed our own in many respects.

The point you insist on missing here is that in neither of those cases were there adherents to a psychotic and suicidal religious ideology bent on preventing any progress whatsoever, as we have in Iraq. So your comparison breaks down irretrievably.

The Bush Administration didn’t misunderstimate the enemy in the Middle East. What they underestimated was the almost unimaginable degree of relentless, traitorous abandon with which the American exempt media has distorted the conflict (and all other current events) – starting long before 9/11 – with the single goal of destroying confidence in Bush and the Republicans.

Bush’s most egregious failing here is in not having figured out a way to balance the bias, innuendo, misdirection and outright lies coming from the terrorists’ Fifth Column – ABCCBSNBCNYTCNNREUTERSBBCAP&c. Even with the myriad of blogs handing him the evidence of lies, bias and distortion in the media on a daily basis, he’s chosen to remain pretty much silent on this subject.

The President apparently has (perhaps misplaced) faith that the American People will know the truth when they hear it. But what we’ve been hearing is nothing more than a barrage of bile – focused not on a positive outcome in Iraq, nor on peace in the Middle East, but on wresting back power and control of the federal government. And to hell with the Iraqis or anyone else who’s destroyed in the process.

Thank you for your polite response. Such is increasingly a rarity on the Net.

For a neocon, the liberation is defensive in nature. That is, we have to reform them, or they will come to us, and flowers of fire will sprout in our major cities. And then we will do a widespread nuking of ‘the usual suspects’ across the Mid-East to get the plausible deniability supplier of these nukes to the terrorists that hit us.

So thats the reason for the change in policy. Rogue nations + WMD + terrorists = millions of dead Americans and hundreds of millions of dead Arabs.

Also, while I like self-determination, it is a fact, I believe, that confident and aggressive tyrannical regimes don’t fade away. After all, the French Revolution occurred when the nobles started to reform. Saddam Hussein was not going anywhere; the Iraqi people lacked the ability to deal with him.

You seem to be saying that if we left now, the country would be able to govern itself just fine. I disagree. It would collapse into true civil war, and millions of dead Iraqi’s would be on our heads, just like the Boat People.

Actually, I think with Japan and Germany we are the best occupiers. And crushing the will of the enemy works fine. However, we haven’t done that. But at the same time the vast majority of Iraqi’s want us there. The problem is the same that was in Bolshevik Russia–a small, perhaps 5% group can force its will on the majority if they are dedicated and ruthless enough.

The question of the hour is this: Do people really want democracy, rule of law, and such, and will they fight for it if given a decent chance to have it? If not, then our enterprise in Iraq is truly hopeless, and we might as well go to Plan B–Nuke them until the bedrock glows.

But, I don’t believe most people will choose tyranny over freedom if given a half-decent chance to have freedom. Perhaps I am wrong. Pray that I am not.

I do not think you support slavery, but that is what your point about Tennessee and the Civil War means. It was either hopeless to reform the South, and the North undertook a fool’s errand to end slavery, or the North resolutely did the right thing in the broad scheme of things. Granted, then as now, there are many areas where the ending of Slavery and the Reconstruction of the South, or the ending of the Rape Rooms and the Reconstruction of Iraq could have been done much better, but as a conservative, I understand that people and government are prone to sin and stupidity.

I am uncertain why the President has not more boldly attacked the enemy. Part of it is the ‘make nice’ approach; part is the unrelenting assault from the Left in a manner with people writing novels about assasinating him, and all sorts of other evils of partisan excess; part is the fact that Reconstruction takes time. We’re still in Germany sixty years later, and they still struggle with neo-nazis.

But, I don’t know why he hasn’t just said ‘You can get hanged for a sheep as well as a goat’ and bombed Iran to provoke a revolution , and had the Saudi’s over for a Texas BBQ with them as the main course. Some people suspect that Saudi money is just so sweet to various officials. Some wonder if the Iranians already have a nuke, say planted in the US, and there’s a quiet blackmail vs. blackmail game going on. Some suspect Bush of not really being that serious about the war on terror.

Two things I can say: 1)I think the man is a bit beaten down. Six years of abuse, there’s not another word for it, is enough to break down even the toughest man, and Bush seems that sort, but there’s only so much one can take. 2)I wonder if he is reverting back to his father’s ways. I remember his father in the election he lost saying that he would come out with a new plan to energize the campaign…if the conservatives would just wait. So we waited. The date got moved back. Wait some more. Repeat, rinse and recycle.

His father struck me as a good manager, not a leader. I think Bush jr. saw these mistakes and vowed not to do them, but that after six years of pounding, he might be going back to his roots.

No, we’re not a theocracy, but it used to be that we believed in self determination rather than imposing our form of government on every country that we think needs to be improved.

Even Central Command nominee Admiral William Fallon said today, “I think that we would probably be wise to temper our expectations here, that the likelihood that Iraq is suddenly going to turn into something that looks close to what we enjoy here in this country is going to be a long time coming.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/30/AR2007013000099.html

So, the “new” leader, of our “new” strategy, has lowered expectations. Just as the colonists claimed that the countries that they colonized could not govern themselves, we will do the same to justify our presence in Iraq.

The problem with Iraq is that we went in as a liberating army (we were prepared for that role), and then we were forced to become an occupying army (we weren’t prepared for that role). Occupying armies are NEVER successful unless the occupied want them to be there, like NATO during the Cold War.

Even the most successful occupiers in recent history, the Red Army, the Nazis, and the Japanese, failed to impose their will once they left. And they were all hated by everyone, except for their lackeys who depended on them for power, for simply being where they weren’t wanted.

People in Tenn. should especially understand this last point if they know anything about the Civil War and Reconstruction.

Lastly, the neocons are screaming that the Democrats want us to lose. Explain please, why, with four years with a rubber-stamping Republican Congress, the President has failed to achieve victory? When, during that time, he could have gotten anything he thought he needed or wanted to “win” this war?

I suppose what you are saying about the looting is that we should have shot the looters. I happen to agree with that, but we were trying to be nice. So, I suppose if we do fail, we can chalk it up to an excess of niceness.

And now for the rest of the situation–I see a thin, wavering line of troops facing an onrushing horde of barbarians. And some start to cut and run even though logically they know it makes their death more certain, and dooms their friends. And then out rings a clear cry from Captain Crittenden and many like him.

“Stand! I say Stand! These brutes are beaten if we just stand!”

And so it is. The Left has very little left but ferocity.

AND CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!? The neocons are all upset because the Iranians have the nerve to MEDDLE in a country we invaded and are occupying against the will of a majority of people in Iraq.

On a different note, I recently challenged a liberal friend asking why, if the Democrats are so opposed to the war in Iraq, why dont they simply cut off funding? The obvious answer to me is that it makes a convenient platform which makes the legislative masturbation of Senator Hagel and company all the more reprehensible; even more telling though when I pushed my friend about cutting off funding, she asserted the “troops would have to fight their way out of Iraq.” She really believed that and I was unable to suggest otherwise.