When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Funny, but the Light Brigade were considered “noble.” We are told to honor them. The Democrats don’t consider the military noble, or worthy of honor, for any purpose (see John “I put my silver, ketchup flavored foot in my mouth again” Kerry.)

Besides, with that logic, then out of the troops that we have sent to Iraq, we would have lost a whole lot more (almost 40%, if I remember correctly.)

We have a bunch of Neville Chamberlain’s and not enough Winston Churchhill’s in this argument. Churchill understood you could not negotiate with evil. You cannot negotiate with those who wish to make you submit or die as the terrorists inside Iraq …

Nice debating point, but it’s not true. Senator Hagel, for one, has raised the possibility. http://www.spacewar.com/2004/040420154719.soi8dhtt.html

On the merits, I agree with Robert. We seem to be losing the war. Certainly, if we pull out now we will be perceived as having lost. If you want to win, put in more troops. I also agree with Robert that 20,000 is not enough. Historical precedents suggest hundreds of thousands more, maybe even a million. To keep hundreds of thousands of troops in Iraq, you might have to increase the Army by a million or two. That’s easily with US capabilities– for a rich country of 300 million people it’s not even breathing hard –but it would require a draft. If you are serious about winning, if this really is comparable to WWII or the Cold War, then that’s what you should do. It’s a theoretical possibility, though, since it’s obviously a nonstarter in American politics. If you were going to do something like that, you should have started in 2003 or 2004.

Personally, I think that the comparison to WWII or the Cold War is absurd, and that crushing the Iraq insurgency with hundreds of thousands of US troops would be a Pyrrhic victory. So I’m not in favor of a draft (and I doubt Robert is either).

I see no alternatives that (a) hold much promise of actual victory and (b) are politically possible. So I think we’ve already lost, and the only question is how bad the damage will be.

Of couse, I could be wrong. I’m an American, and the American record on making predictions about Iraq is pretty bad.