That’s what this Marine major says, though more politely than my post title does:

Most of the violent news is true; the death and destruction are very real. But experienced military officers know that the horror stories, however dramatic, do not represent the broader conditions there or the chances for future success. For every vividly portrayed suicide bombing, there are hundreds of thousands of people living quiet, if often uncertain, lives. For every depressing story of unrest and instability there is an untold story of potential and hope. The impression of Iraq as an unfathomable quagmire is false and dangerously misleading.

It is this false impression that has led us to a moment of national truth. The proponents of the quagmire vision argue that the very presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is the cause of the insurgency and that our withdrawal would give the Iraqis their only true chance for stability. Most military officers and NCOs with ground experience in Iraq know that this vision is patently false. Although the presence of U.S. forces certainly inflames sentiment and provides the insurgents with targets, the anti-coalition insurgency is mostly a symptom of the underlying conditions in Iraq. It may seem paradoxical, but only our presence can buffer the violence enough to allow for eventual stability.

Joe Katzman has some thoughts on the nature of true allies.

Let’s call it the “McCain Treaty With Al Qaeda.”

Tom Sowell writes about one of my own favorite themes: The Media’s War:

The Marines lost more than 5,000 men taking one island in the Pacific during a three-month period in World War II. In the Civil War, the Confederates lost 5,000 men in one battle in one day.

Yet there was Jim Lehrer on the “News Hour” last week earnestly asking Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about the ten Americans killed that day. It is hard to imagine anybody in any previous war asking any such question of anyone responsible for fighting a war.

We have lost more men than that in our most overwhelming and one-sided victories in previous wars. During an aerial battle over the Mariannas islands in World War II, Americans shot down hundreds of Japanese planes while losing about 30 of their own.

If the media of that era had been reporting the way the media report today, all we would have heard about would have been that more than two dozen Americans were killed that day.

It’s been two years since Saddam was pulled out of his rat hole. And the trial continues.

Paul Sperry and Debbie Schlussel describe why Sami Al-Arian walked.

The amount of incompetence at the FBI and the Justice Department remains staggering and, during wartime, frightening.

Of course, talk is cheap. We’ll see if anything actually comes of this.

A Middle East without Israel. At the UN.

I hope that John Bolton has something to say about this.

I know that those of you who’ve been getting all of your Iraq news from the MSM will find this shocking, but there is political progress there. I’m actually shocked that the WaPo finally finds it newsworthy.

I occasionally get grief for my World War II comparisons and satires, but now the DNC is doing it:

“Today, as we reflect on that victory, it is hard to ignore the stark contrast between President Roosevelt