This Kind Of Thing

Makes me want to cry.

I'm so incredibly depressed when I read about things like this. We just haven't learned a damn thing. Armies are really good at killing and destroying--particularly the US Army. That's what it's supposed to do, and it's damn good at doing it. That being said, armies are really bad at making countries work. You'd think that we'd have learned that by now. But you'd be wrong.

"Army Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., the commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, who spent much of the year in western Iraq, said he believes that at the tactical level at which fighting occurs, the U.S. military is still winning. But when asked whether he believes the United States is losing, he said, 'I think strategically, we are.'

"Army Col. Paul Hughes, who last year was the first director of strategic planning for the U.S. occupation authority in Baghdad, said he agrees with that view and noted that a pattern of winning battles while losing a war characterized the U.S. failure in Vietnam. 'Unless we ensure that we have coherency in our policy, we will lose strategically,' he said in an interview Friday.

"'I lost my brother in Vietnam,' added Hughes, a veteran Army strategist who is involved in formulating Iraq policy. 'I promised myself, when I came on active duty, that I would do everything in my power to prevent that [sort of strategic loss] from happening again. Here I am, 30 years later, thinking we will win every fight and lose the war, because we don't understand the war we're in.'"

Wow. Yet it goes on.

"A senior general at the Pentagon said he believes the United States is already on the road to defeat. 'It is doubtful we can go on much longer like this,' he said. 'The American people may not stand for it -- and they should not.'

"Asked who was to blame, this general pointed directly at Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz. 'I do not believe we had a clearly defined war strategy, end state and exit strategy before we commenced our invasion," he said. "Had someone like Colin Powell been the chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff], he would not have agreed to send troops without a clear exit strategy. The current OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] refused to listen or adhere to military advice.'"

But that's not enough.

What about Congress?

"Likewise, Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), a former Marine who is one of most hawkish Democrats in Congress, last week said, 'We cannot prevail in this war as it is going today,' and said that the Bush administration should either boost its troop numbers or withdraw.

"Larry Diamond, who until recently was a senior political adviser of the U.S. occupation authority in Iraq, argued that the United States is not losing the war but is in danger of doing so. 'I think that we have fallen into a period of real political difficulty where we are no longer clearly winning the peace, and where the prospect of a successful transition to democracy is in doubt.'

"'Basically, it's up in the air now,' Diamond continued. 'That's what is at stake. . . . We can't keep making tactical and strategic mistakes.'"

We can't. We really, really can't.