Imagine how much better the war on the infidels would progress, and how many more Islamist dimwits might join the cause, if sexually-experienced women rather than 76 virgins were promised to suicidal bombers -- Imagine how much more threatening the terrorists might be if they were aware of and conformed to the principle of survivabilty, i.e., instead of depleting their combat power through suicide attacks, they might rely on sniping— a tactical mode that also will discombobulate an enemy, not to mention preserve manpower.

Imagine for just a moment that Sadam had possessed and deployed WMDs -- Imagine further that he had decided to use them when US and coalition forces attacked -- That's well within the realm of reason as he had used WMDs to kill thousands of Iranian soldiers as well as Kurdish and Shiite civilians on 11 separate occasions in the past; so, can anyone conclude that he would have exercised restraint 4 years ago, when the infidels threatened to topple his regime? -- Imagine the casualties that coalition forces would have suffered had Iraqi forces used sarin, anthrax, or some form of poisonous gas -- As things developed, of course, coalition forces got lucky: what might have proved a disaster in the first several weeks of the campaign didn't occur -- To put the matter in simple terms: the assigned mission was less hazardous than anticipated, and all who "support the troops, but not the war" might consider that the next time they rally to denounce Bush, et als as "liars," etc -- More later, best regards, OldGrunt

Karl Kraus: “War is, at first, the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn’t any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone’s being worse off.”

George Orwell: “The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”

Peace: according to Ambrose Bierce, “in international affairs, a period of cheating between two periods of fighting,” while its antonym is “WAR, n.--a by-product of the arts of peace. The most menacing political condition is a period of international amity. . . . War loves to come like a thief in the night; professions of eternal amity provide the night.”

Confederate ranger captain John “Hanse” McNeill: “Always look well for a getting-out place before going in.”

Charles W. Thayer: “Guerrillas never win wars but their adversaries often lose them.”

“To carry the spirit of peace into war is a weak and cruel policy. When an extreme case calls for that remedy which is in its own nature most violent, and which, in such cases, is a remedy only because it is violent, it is idle to think of mitigating and diluting. Languid war can do nothing which negotiation or submission will not do better; and to act on any other principle is, not to save blood and money, but to squander them.”

“One country may support another’s cause, but will never take it so seriously as it takes its own. A moderately-sized force will be sent to help; but if things go wrong, the operation is pretty well written off, and one tries to withdraw at the smallest possible cost.”