But we are the only one helping to re-flood the lands of the Marsh Arabs. We are the only ones getting schools up and running. The only ones attempting to protect peopleat polling stations. If the process has no value, why is there no shortage of Iraqi men lining up to join the police academies? Again, just questions...

I ran into a Marine officer today at a club in Tampa today and asked some very direct questions. It was his unrehearsed sentiment that "we are winning" and that this is no Vietnam. Without sounding like a warmonger, I simply told him "thank you for serving". Without pause, and with the greatest measure of conviction and sincerity I have ever heard, the Marine said "It is a pleasure to serve you, sir". Think about that.

IMO, it is important that those of us who have not been on the ground in Iraq need to realize, that quite possibly, there is another side to the story in Iraq, and that absent mass defections of our soldiers and mass uprisings of Iraqi citizens, there must be a reason why the folks fighting the war over there are convinced of their mission.

We have to remember that the guys killing our guys are not Sorbonne-educated socialist pan-Arab nationalists. These are guys that shoot women in soccer stadiums. And the ones they don't shoot are treated like slaves. The stakes are pretty significant.

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