http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8P1P5EO0.html

So what comes after the extended deployments? More extended deployments? Will our troops be forced to serve for 20 years in the field, like the Roman soldiers did?

Somebody needs to get after this administration for abusing our troops. If they really want to stay in Iraq for a long period of time, they can't just extend the deployments indefinitely. At some point they need a draft or to support a massive volunteer effort. They need to make some serious provision for replacing the troops.

...except call for a draft, sacrifice, volunteers, tax increases, or adequate armor for the troops.

In fact the main thing they are doing is planning on losing. They are waiting for the day the Democrats cut off the funding and then they will accuse the Democrats of having lost the war.

...but we do have giant mobile personal telephone booths.

Frankly, most of the 'future' has already happened--in my Dad's lifetime, from 1898 to 1976. He went from serving on real sailing ships to watching the moon landings on tv. We're just still living in that future. And is it really so terrible to live in a relatively stable time? Maybe we ought to take the opportunity to catch our breaths and start thinking about how we can create the kind of the world we want to live in, rather than passively accepting whatever change happens to befall us.

Not true. Bush WILL accept losing, as long as the blame falls to another president or to the Democrats.

The only strategy going on here is to kick the can along until January 2009.

Realname, this war is bad because we can't get out. We can't win and ironically we also can't lose, so there's no obvious way out. We're stuck in Iraq forever at step one and there's no step two. It's a true quagmire.

Unless we can establish security for ordinary Iraqis, there is no possiblity of defeating the insurgents or establishing a stable, pro-American government. The problem is that we don't have enough troops to establish security and we're highly unlikely to get enough troops, because this would require a draft or a massive volunteer effort on the part of alleged Republican patriots (fat chance of that).

Most Iraqis in fact NEVER see American troops. The Iraqi troops that are supposed to take over from us are infiltrated by the insurgents. Hence the insurgents have every reasonable expectation that they will win in the end.

The war is bad because it's breaking our army. How long can we keep extending deployments? How long can we keep losing 20, 30, 40 soldiers per day in an utterly futile and pointless effort? How long can we have a volunteer army if we're just going to abuse the volunteers? If Iran makes trouble, or some other country makes trouble, what are we going to do about it? Nothing, because right now we don't have a functioning army. And every day this gets worse.

The war is bad because it puts us in the position of being Israel in the ME with the Iraqis as our Palestinians. And that's a toxic situation that can only result in more terrorism against us and more ME instablity far into the future. The war in Iraq only serves the interests of Al Qaeda, not us.

Whether the war is 'right' or 'wrong' is just pointless. Right or wrong, the war isn't working for us and we can't make it work.

So tell me, what does that imply? Does it imply that we can do whatever we want with them? Does it imply that we can send them back to a pointless war year after year after year until they all die or are permanently impaired or go crazy? Does it imply that we don't have to care what happens to them?

When someone volunteers to do a job, that doesn't mean they signed away their rights or their humanity. If your mother signs up to bake cookies for the church society, that doesn't give the church society the right to keep her under lock and key until she drops dead from baking cookies.

Remember, without these volunteers, we'd have to have a draft. Only libertarian pinheads think it's OK to just dimiss whatever happens to volunteers--because without them, it might well happen to you.

...that Bill Clinton turned down a lot of offers to sit on boards and the like so that he could support his wife in her two runs for the Senate and now for the presidency.

Hillary Clinton, btw, is now doiing a lot better for herself than she ever would have by remaining a partner in an Arkansas law office.

This premise of this article is just silly. Michelle Obama has a chance to play a deciding role in history much bigger than any dumbass corporate job she could ever have.

And furthermore, isn't it HER choice to do what SHE wants? Where is anyone getting off telling her what to do?

...is that people are only worth as much as their jobs are worth. That people with top level jobs are worth more than people with lower level jobs or with no jobs at all.

That if you're not raking in the corporate bucks, and turning over 90 percent of your hours to some corporate endeavor, you're nothing and your productivity is 'wasted.'

That's really why so many people dislike feminism and don't like being identified with it: because too much of the time, as in this dumb article, feminism really means corporationism: it means turning your life almost entirely over to your job. And that's just ugly.

...is nursery, playground, and bank.

Such is the result of the Republican 'strength' doctrine.