[PornoDoggy]

Hey, I've been wrong about that region before.

In the late 70s a very liberal friend of mine was just overjoyed to see the Shah overthrown, and as we watched developments over there he assured me that there was nothing to worry about - the Iranian people were far too sophisticated to fall for Islamic fundamentalism, and that it was a phase that would blow over. I was a defeatist about that too.

Oh, wait ... that wasn't it.

Well, there was the time when I was younger that my Uncle and my Dad assured me that there was no way a bunch of pissant little gooks could stand up to American air power and keep supplying those troops in the ....

Well, shit.

I'm sure you're right Mike. The problem I got is that what I'm hearing out of far too many people these days sound more like stuff from the mouth of Bismark stuck in a George M. Cohen musical.

I mean, what have we got to worry about? We won so well in Afghanistan, right? Why, I'll bet we control 20% of the country over there - in the daylight, anyway. Who ever heard of the Afghani's, once defeated, causing problems for a major power? We've got a whole 9,000 U.S. troops still in Afghanistan, so there's nothing to worry about, right? Good thing this isn't the 60s and 70s - 9,000 of today's troops must be more than equal to a half-million running around in a country the fifth of the size of Afghanistan.

I am not now, nor have I ever been afraid of a defeat by the Iraqi military forces. I'm not afraid of losing the war - I'm afraid of losing the peace.