The Straw Men

With the thoughts you'd be thinkin'
You could be another Lincoln
If you only had a brain

--If I Only Had A Brain, Wizard of Oz

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As the U.S. death toll passed 3,500 last week, we were told that newly minted War Czar Lt. General Douglas Lute is concerned over the Iraqi's ''capacity'' to produce an outcome--any directed outcome--regardless of how little or much finesse the U.S. shows in its coercion techniques.

''The question in my mind is. . .to what degree do they actually have the capacity themselves to produce [a given] outcome,'' said Lute in his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

''The Bush administration has warned that the current troop buildup in and around Baghdad will result in more U.S. casualties as American troops increasingly come into contact with enemy forces (U.S. Tolls Top 3,500 in Iraq.)''

Ranger fears the enemy forces are actually the people of Iraq. If the people of Iraq are the enemy forces, then why are we there?

Foreign Affairs last Fall (Sept./Oct. 06, p. 73) stated, ''Around 92% of the votes in the December 2005 election [in Iraq] were cast for sectarian parties.'' Further, ''Events in Iraq suggest what is unfolding is not a clash between West and Islam but, increasingly, a clash within Islamic civilization itself.'' In other words, who or what are U.S. soldiers dying for?

Ranger sure hopes somebody knows, because the U.S. casualties will be dead for a long time.