I Stand Corrected
One individual has taken issue with my post yesterday, and I deserved it. I was incorrect in asserting that the US could have done something to quell the insurgency. There really is nothing we could have done, short of being complete and utter bastards. Many if not most of the insurgents are transplants and not even Iraqi. No military force would have been big enough to seal Iraqi borders. There is also the difficulty of determining exactly who the enemy is. Oh, dammit. Did I just make another reference to Vietnam? We could have adopted a "scorched earth" policy toward insurgents and leveled mosques from which they operated, etc. That would not have exactly endeared us to the Iraqi public whose attitude toward the U.S. seems best described as skeptical gratitude. So we opted for a "kinder, gentler" approach, to foster better relations with the Iraqi people. Maybe we did learn something from Vietnam after all.
I know all this. Some of my past writing will support this contention. It was just sloppy writing on my part and I was called on it. That's what I get for having a friend who occasionally re-posts my entries on his own (much more widely read) blog. The six readers of my blog generally aren't so critical.
However, that does not invalidate the point I was making that Bush did not have the balls to approach this war properly. There is no excuse Bush for caving to political pressure and reducing troop strength in Iraq. It was done more to save face than anything else, if you ask me. It was done to "prove" that his sunny assessment of Iraq is correct. It does not excuse the Pentagon and the administration for failing to equip our troops for guerilla warfare. Warfare they had to know was inevitable. Warfare that is costly in every sense of the word.
There is no excuse for the constant spin about progress in Iraq. The now famous "the insurgency is in its last throes" quote is only the latest in a string of spin that does little to reflect reality in Iraq. Talk about trying to polish a turd. From the very beginning the administration he has downplayed the threat of the "insurgents." That in itself is some euphemism. Why don't we just call them terrorists? Because we are fighting a "war on terror" and getting nowhere against terrorists is bad PR, so they are not terrorists. They are "insurgents." Whatever.
The rising price tag isn't very popular either. Frankly, money should be a non-issue, but no one has the balls to cut domestic spending to fund the war in Iraq. Would I support tax increases (which are coming whether support them or not) to pay the bill? I would not be happy about it, but yes, I would. We are not talking about spending money on Iraq, people. We are talking about bringing our sons and daughters home safely. We have lost 1589 lives since "mission accomplished." 
If only one more solider comes home safe, the cost is worth it. And, back to my point, if Bush didn't have the balls to stand in front of the American people, give an honest assessment of the situation and ask them to tighten their belts so we could afford to do the job properly, then he shouldn't have started the ball rolling in the first place.
The debate over whether or not we should be in Iraq is moot at this point. It's done. The current violence is not a battle we can win, but we should be doing our damnedest to ensure the safety of our troops who are doing their best to maintain some kind of order until Iraq is stable enough to assume responsibility for their own safety.