No one said this would be easy, but it's better that these thugs, both Shia and Sunni, get this out of their system (i.e. dead) sooner rather than later. For Iraq to become a functioning Democracy, the people need to learn that voting and violence are not the same thing. Those who cannot be dissuaded, will be eliminated.

More U.S. soldiers are going to die. It's tragic, and it's a shame, but it's going to happen. I have friends in the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force who are in Iraq now. As I watch the news each night, I dread the possibility of seeing a familiar name. These men are heroes, and they are doing right. They are making the world a safer place for you, for me and for those ungrateful, anti-American, anti-freedom communists at A.N.S.W.E.R.

Iraq isn't Vietnam, as much as Ted Kennedy would like it to be. We lost Vietnam for two reasons: First, we had politicians micro-mismanaging the war effort. Second, American public opinion turned against the war. We didn't lose because it was an immoral war -- it wasn't. Millions of freedom-loving Vietnamese were killed, shipped off to brutal re-education camps or fled in the wake of the fall of South Vietnam.

What is happening in Iraq right now is being compared to the Tet Offensive -- a military disaster for the Viet Cong, but a public relations bonanza for those in America opposed to the war.

These militias aren't interested in freedom from American "occupation." They want political power for themselves, at the expense of all others.

Creating a democracy where none has ever existed before is difficult, and a strong case can be made that the Bush administration has made mistakes. The United States has done nation-building before, and successfully (Japan), but there's very little practical institutional memory remaining from that experience. We're learning all over again.

What's been troubling has been partisan attacks on the Bush administration's handling of Iraq from the likes of Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. They assail Bush, but offer platitudes, not plans. They identify problems, but offer no real solutions. The say that we must remove the "American face" from the occupation, but ignore the fact that fighting, and dying, alongside us are Poles, Ukrainians, British, Salvadorans and others.

We must not quit and pull our troops out, even as the death toll continues to rise. Until we have a Democracy in Iraq and leave that nation in a peaceful state, any withdrawal will be seen as yet another sign of weakness by radical Islamists whose only desire is to murder Americans because of who we are.

Check out Lt. Smash for more.