Oh sure, the world may be SAYING “No, no!” – but you know what THAT really means. Look, the world was wearing thong underwear, okay? And everybody knows that France, in particular, gets excited when you treat her a little rough.

And if Ulysses Grant was somehow resurrected and put in charge of Iraq, the first thing he would say is “wars are won by logistics – why can’t you keep your troops supplied? Where the fuck are your reserves? And what’s this ‘Green Zone’ shit?”

Then, he’d go back to the bottle – which is exactly what I’d be doing if I suddenly found myself in charge of the “occupation”.

If you want to know what’s wrong with the US military, go read former 173rd Airborne Lt Col Anthony Herbert’s “Soldier”. It’s about Vietnam, but absolutely nothing has changed in the mindset of the officer corps since then.

Ha, HG, the flaws in your argument are now clear. There are no goal posts in Iraq.

Wait, is that vaccine driving over a cliff or rolling up a hill? I’m confused.

You say tomato, I say tomahto…

OK, call it a vaccine. Whatever metaphor works for ya. I just mean that we have to make them look as bad as Nazis now do to the majority of the populace. That would be enough.

I think we are talking about the same thing in different words, Realist.

I rarely watch Bravo. Way too many flitty types. And Jesus, I got sick of WEST WING after the fourth season.

good times!

but I think you accurately describe the fantasy world that neocons and the majority of republicans inhabit – bravo

All this shows is that in Raiders, God is totally on Indy’s side, even if Indy starts off the movie not believing in him. And that’s just how cool God is. And Iraq is like that. Our generals can drive us right off a cliff in Iraq even if there aren’t any cliffs in Iraq, because God is on their side, even if they don’t believe in him.

If anyone understood any of that, I beseech you to explain it to me. Meanwhile, I’ll be over here drinking way too much Robitussin.

I’m sure you are going to come back to me and go something like Kurdistan isn’t really part of Iraq, and thus move the goal posts again.

But honestly, do you think that because you believe that Iraq doesn’t have cliffs (even though you have been contradicted in this matter) that such a “fact” constitutes a valid argument against saying (using a cliff based metaphor) that Bush’s Iraq policy is a failure? Sadly, I think I know the answer.

What’s next in the Jose Chung series of arguments? When hyperbole is used to describe the enormity of the task the US has in Iraq, quibble over whether or not it is worse than rolling a boulder up a hill for all eternity?

You don’t fight a disease by discrediting it. Did we try to discredit polio? No, we didn’t. We came up with a vaccine and did everything we could to wipe polio from the face of the planet.

The same policy should apply to neo-cons. They’re far too dangerous to be merely contained. If we don’t destroy them completely once we have the upper hand, they’ll be back.

As Bush is leaving office in January 2009, he could implement the military option and take out all of Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Sure. Why not take a shit on the Oval Office desk while he’s at it?

No, be honest. In all of the thousands of images from Iraq where did you ever see a cliff or a mountain?