Fact is, some of the most mentally ill actually enjoy their affliction. So I suggest you start drinking-heavily.-- Derbig Mooser

Interestingly, this week we are at our camp north of Bangor. Drinking heavily, smoking dope, and drinking carrot juice are indeed the mode of living here, with an apparently significant amount of inbreeding. I suppose when one is snowbound that's all that's available. I can see why you call this home.

That would be a good argument if O’Hanlon was “staunchly opposed” to the war. As Glenn well documented, O’Hanlon believed the war was necessary months before the invasion and urged war opponents to get on board and accept the inevitable. While that is hardly “fist pumping” boisteriousness the point is one of degree. Here it is the clear argument that you cannot argue this war is necessary and inevitable, then talk about how well its going only to then to

It seems your finger hit the cut button without going to paste, but I get the point. Let me offer this for your consideration. Glenn is a lawyer. Lawyers are adversarial and while generally truthful are also tending to offer highly edited and sensationalized versions of the truth. One cannot go solely by what Glenn offers as proof for a point, one has to assume there are other facts available that aren't supportive of Glenn's case. For instance, did Glenn offer up O'Hanlon's article from 2004 "Set a date to pull out."?
http://www.brook.edu/views/op-ed/steinberg/20040518.htm
Doesn't that sound like Murtha rather than Kristol?

It's also likely that an academic's version of staunch criticism sounds more like this....

"As for the supposed links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, the available evidence points strongly to one conclusion, the same conclusion that the intelligence community consistently reached: the Bush administration's frequent insinuations that Saddam Hussein may have had an active collaboration with Al Qaeda, perhaps even assisting the 9/11 hijackers in some way, are without foundation."

rather than, "Bush is a scum sucking pig."

Reading these two other articles, I'm struck by a singular lack of approval about the war, and get more a sense of how the war is failing, and what to do about that.
http://www.senate.gov/~foreign/testimony/2007/OhanlonTestimony070110.pdf
http://intelligence.house.gov/media/pdfs/hpscimoh0804.pdf

The sense I DO get from all this is a fear of any glimmer of hope that a positive or nuetral outcome is possible. Quite frankly the idea that less killing is "bad" and the hope of such is "bad" strikes me as perverted. Attacking someone's credibility to dissuade hope for the future is not something I am comfortable with, ESPECIALLY when the attack is on dubious merits.

When you get done binging and breeding, shooter, get a good night's sleep, send a post, and we can continue the discussion with all four wheels on the ground, okay?-- ondelette

Sadly, I'm stone cold sober...just a lousy writer. Also sadly is that in this section of Maine my description is fairly accurate. The poverty here is Appalachain in some sections, and a local furniture company just went bust for another 130 jobs lost. It's become an anti-business area with predictable results. If Mrs. Shooter's family didn't have a 150 year history here, I'd be campaigning to vacation somewhere less depressing.

Like what exactly? You can certainly run around with your hair on fire and demand someone do something, but if you have nothing to offer as a suggestion after all this time, I'd say you've answered your own demand. Now then, when you come up with some brilliant strategy that would have solved the problem without benefit of hindsight, let us know. Until then, STFU.

I appreciate the opportunity, let's see if I can explain myself well.

1. My view is that the military is a dampener on sectarian violence. Those that say centuries of religious strife are indeed correct, and any change in attitude will take at least a generation or more to effect. For any movement at all to happen will require some measure of security and unfortunately that comes only as a result of our presence, all out civil war, or partioning Iraq and ceding the relevant areas to neighboring countries. Granted none of those options are good. The other aspect of change is proximity to culture that has the desired traits. China is the best example, taking it's cues from Hong Kong and Taiwan. If we leave, theocracy will devolve the country backwards in time. Lastly, vascillation in our intent makes violence a good option for insurgents. It is a self fullfilling prophecy.

So, the only way I see to make progress against religious fundamentalism is to expose the region to Western culture on a sustained basis. Decades, if necessary. We have done so in numerous places around the globe and with great success.

2. Failure? There is no room for failure. Ideology has no timetable. Islam has no boundaries, and no timetable either. Success would be Islam without the need to conquer.