How long? Long enough to give the Iraqi people a chance to make up their minds whether they wish the massadrah or democracy. Whehther they can live at peace which each other.

Is the cost too much? I have two answers to that. The first is that human life is precious. We have lost 3400 Us soldiers & the Brits have lost more than 250. Iraqis have lost far more than that. Sometimes to US military actions, sometimes to mistakes by the US forces, rarely to deliberate war crimes by US forces. Very often the losses have been to deliberate atrocities perpetrated by Al-Qaeda branded murderers or to the gangs of murderers operated by their opponents the Al-Sadr Brigades and such.

All those lives will have been lost for nothing if we crumble now. We should grieve for the honored dead and try to honor their loss by seeing this through.

The other answer is - on an historical basis the losses have not been that much. Certainly US losses are at less than 8% the level of Vietnam to date. Iraqi losses of perhaps 100,000 people are heavy - but in comparison to what?

Let's see..... What can we compare this to? How many Vietnamese lost to that country's civil war between 1950 and 1973? Two million? Cambodia? Estmates of 4 million casualties. One million lost in Armenia, about the same lost in Rwanda, how many lost in Congo? How many in Darfur to date, and the other murders of the Sudanese government. How many did Saddam's regime murder - I've heard estimates of up to 2 million although the concensus is a 'mere' million or so.

The stakes are extremely high in this kind of thing, and 100,000 are just openers.

Joerg, you and other war opponents seem to be doing your best to sap the will of Americans to see this through, with considerable success I add. If the US goes, and if a couple million Iraqis and Afghans die as a result, will you and your fellows take your share of the blame?

I fear not....

No, I can't be completely specific. Not forever - possibly as long as another couple of years.

War opponents have lost the plot. as protracted and difficult and costly as this war has been - and as little use as most of the US 'friends' have been (or should I write 'ex-friends', Jorge?) - there are far worse things than the current situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Zaire - these are examples of what can and do happen.

Pulling out because one cannot 'win' is specious reasoning. It amounts to a foreign policy featuring the petulance of a spoiled child - reasoning that because one cannot define completely what winning is one refuses to participate. Germany and France have taken the petulant route - I would not have the US follow them.

What is a 'win' in the current situation? A reasonably stable Iraq, one in which the Sunnis can survive if not exactly thrive. One in which none of the three groups get to impose their will on the other two. Democracy is a 'nice to have' but if we can avert a blood bath even with a dictator or an oligarchy - I'd settle for that.

Tired of being stereotyped as crazed nazi torture-fiend war-crimimals?

Tired of earnest debates in some 'allied' countries asking whether contributing 3000 (+) noncombatant 'soldiers' is 'too much'.

Tired of polls from said 'allies' with 70% of their citzens of the opinion that the US President is lower than pond scum and worse than one AH?

Could be.....

"Why should Americans care about the debate in Germany?"

Because the 'deabte' in Germany ostensibly sets Germany policy - which has resulted in little effective help from what ought to be our strongest ally. Only the UK owes more to the US.

Although one might argue that France should feel a bit more obligation given that the US kept Kaiser Bill's toopers from marching down the Champs Elysees in 1918 and permitted Charles DeGaulle to personally 'liberate' France with such a parade in 1945. But no sense beating a dead horse - and that one has been rotting since 1964 at the latest....

Now Germany seeks to do the most delicate of diplomatic tasks - emulate DeGaulle (on all important points) whilst retaining the US committment to the defense of Europe.

Do you really believe that your leaders are up to that one? Talleyrand & Metternich in their heyday could not have done it - but Angie Merkel is going to do it while holding Bush at arm's length. She'll probably trie balance 1000 angels on the head of a pin at the same time - some people don't understand their own limits!

We're not that dumb, Joerg. We were dumb enough to believe that the German people regarded the US as an important ally and were ready to do what was necessary to succor that alliance, 'tis true. But it's a case of 'fool me once'.....

If you value the alliance I suggest that a ton of repair needs to be done - starting in Europe. But I see no possiblility of that happening in time to save NATO....

Ok, Zyme, let's explain this in realpolitik.

Any alliance is a 'quid pro quo', NATO decidedly not excluded. There has been a pronounced trend within the German and French portion of the NATO allaiance to detach the 'pro quo' from the 'quid', a trend which was completed with the diplmatic actions and refusal of military actions circa 2003 to date. Not to say it only occured then - the trend dates back to Willy Brandt.

NATO is now a 'quid' - the US, Canada, UK et al remain obligated to defend Germany and France - Germany and France recognize no effective obligations at all to the other part of the alliance.

This cannot stand because it is not to the national advantage of any NATO ally EXCEPT that of Germany!

Angela Merkel is continuing the same policy as Gerhard Schroeder and Joska Fischer - quid but no quo. The only difference is that she adds a little icing in a doomed effort to conceal the nature of the cake on offer. The icing makes no difference in the end - Germany's idea of rendering alliance aid remains endless debate about how to deploy almost nothing - and how to remove all the value from the almost nothing which you DO deplay!