I can't speak for the left, whoever that is, but ever since our troops crossed into Iraq I have said essentially that if we're going to be in this battle we had better be in to win.

However that was the battle against Hussein's troops, not the current scene of putting out fires every day and losing men -- fourteen in the last 24 hours, plus one excellent journalist assasinated -- in guerilla actions.

The big question is, how do you manage a situation like this, where the locals who might want to build a workable civilization are constantly being harassed by Islamofacists on one side, and militant rednecks on the other. We used to have a solution in this country called separation of church and state, but it's being badly undermined by our own moralist-fascists. Anyway, my basic feeling is that this should never have been a military operation in the first place. Changing ideas with bullets and pain is a really second-rate way to do it. Flatly, it does not work. At best you acheive a suppressed resentment, and the idea you have suceeded in suppressing will surface again later.

I know there are a lot of people in Iraq who are working to change things in other ways -- reconstruction, social engineering, education and public relations -- and it is those influences, ultimately, that will make a difference there.

My prayers are with the women of Iraq. I actually think in the long run they are the only hope the nation has, directly or indirectly.

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