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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

By now many or most Americans are getting tired of reading about conditions 
in Iraq. There is a danger: not learning the lesson and being condemned to 
repeat the mistake. Many thought that Viet Nam would surely be instructive 
to future decision makers. We were wrong, of course. Politicians with an 
agenda make the right noises, phony the photo ops, cavil the caveats, then 
do the damned deed. We should have a Potential Presidents College where 
military history is a required subject. Anyone who gets a C grade should be 
disqualified.

This is a story about the results of failed leadership, about how good men 
work hard to clean up the dirty messes caused by stupid men and how 
impossible is the task.

The Fall of the Warrior King

By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: October 23, 2005

The body had not yet turned up. Indeed, at that point, early in January 
2004, it wasn't clear there was a body at all. Months later, at the trial, 
the lawyers would still be arguing about it, the puffy, wrinkled corpse 
that was finally found floating face down in an irrigation canal off the 
Tigris. But even then, even before the dead man surfaced, it was clear that 
something had gone wrong on that cold Iraqi night down by the river, 
something wild by the American military's standards of discipline and 
force, and the problem had wended its way up the chain of command to the 
unit's commander, Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman. . . .

[It's a long story. Anyone who still thinks the Iraq Invasion was a good 
idea should read it. Anyone who still thinks that optional wars are ever an 
answer to anything should read it. Everyone should read it.]