Iraqi Recruiting Drives: We are still laboring under the mis-guided notion that we are going to win the hearts and minds of the Iraqi population at large. Of course, this notion has been slipping of late, but like, it had better! I'm sure that there are plently of Iraqis who are pleased as punch that Saddam is gone and that they have relative freedom now. But my guess is those same Iraqis have as much desire to be under the thumb of the Army and Marines as they would being under the Ayatolla.

Fact is, they all have or will revert to their tribal and spiritual leaders who played second-fiddle while Saddam was in charge. Now, they can put their foot on the gas and get into some full-fledged religious warfare! I imagine they will be as happy to kill eachother as they are to kill us, so why not just let them get on with it? Our noblesse oblige toward creating a "Western Democracy" is all fine and well, but ye gods, that will take decades if at all. We've changed the face of the world, to be sure, but there's little guarantee our plastic surgery will take hold. Sometimes, it's just not worth the risk.