ND - I feel for you and your son. I hope and pray that he and his mates get out of this mess safely and soon. If it is at all possible, I have less confidence in my leaders now than I did when we went into this ill-advised, poorly planned war. However..... one lesson that we should have learned from Vietnam is that if we leave we set the people left behind up for disaster. We have set this forest (Iraq) on fire and we have a moral obligation to try and put it out. I am so pissed at our leadership that they have brought us to this point of virtually no options. And Kaiser is right, back in late 2002 and early 2003 if you spoke out about the mistakes that were about to be made, you were labeled an unAmerican pussy. But, I will never forget who got us to this point and who supported the headlong rush to disaster.

What we must do now is figure out how to exit as quickly as possible while leaving behind a viable country. I certainly do not have the answers, but it is beginning to look like the surge is not working. I think the solution is diplomatic at this point if we can get the Decider in Chief to swallow his pride and explore other alternatives. I am not holding my breath however.