Who's Fighting the War?

Yesterday, BT flagged Putz blaming the difficulties in Iraq on a "dysfunctional political class." Today, via the words of Kanan Makiya -- a phenomenally well-intentioned and even heroic man -- he does it again.

Is the war lost? Makiya's asked. His answer is, essentially, "Not if we clap louder!"

Actually, it's worse than that. Makiya and Putz insult the troops by suggesting that a) success in Iraq isn't up them, but b) failure would be the result of a bad "choice" by "the American people" -- as if civilians run the risk of taking an IED to the face. Certainly Makiya's doesn't, not in Waltham, Massachusetts.

And it's the height of hubris, 32 years to the day that the last American troop left Vietnam War, to say that the war is inherently winnable "by a country as great and rich and powerful as the United States."