Here's the link Werner meant to post which seems to originally come from the Wall Street Journal. It argues that a recent tape from Zarqawi sounds tired and desperate, and asserts that we are winning the war.

Well, if we are winning it, it is not too surprising, given the resources we are spending. For half of what we spent taking the nation by force, we probably could have bought it.

That we win it, if we do, does not mean that it was the right course of action, because even if we win it, we have won a foothold in the Middle East at an incredible cost that we could have had much more cheaply. Not only that but we have demonstrated our willingness to act as unrelenting bullies and killers of the innocent, as well as the guilty. No matter how righteous our cause in Iraq was, we have unilaterally invaded a foreign nation, and that will never be forgotten. We were always known by some as aggressors, but we kept it covert, and balanced it with acts in defense of freedom. Those excuses are still being voiced, of course, but will they hold any water in the affairs of the world and command any decent price in the marketplace of ideas?

Or will they be seen as   cheap bully-ragger's plastic imitations of once strongly built notions?



A