Paying the Price

To say Andrew Bacevich knows more about military matters and policy than the Kagans would merely be a matter of opinion (very well-based opinion), that he and his family have paid much MORE of a price than the Kagan's would be a plain fact.

In the name of that knowledge, and that sacrifice he addresses the phony, faux screeches of victory, where no victory exists in Iraq -- and the cowards (like the Kagans) it has bequeathed to us in the future:

Look beyond the spin, the wishful thinking, the intellectual bullying and the myth-making. The real legacy of the surge is that it will enable Bush to bequeath the Iraq war to his successor -- no doubt cause for celebration at AEI, although perhaps less so for the families of U.S. troops. Yet the stubborn insistence that the war must continue also ensures that Bush's successor will, upon taking office, discover that the post-9/11 United States is strategically adrift. Washington no longer has a coherent approach to dealing with Islamic radicalism. Certainly, the next president will not find in Iraq a useful template to be applied in Iran or Syria or Pakistan.

According to the war's most fervent proponents, Bush's critics have become so "invested in defeat" that they cannot see the progress being made on the ground. Yet something similar might be said of those who remain so passionately invested in a futile war's perpetuation. They are unable to see that, surge or no surge, the Iraq war remains an egregious strategic blunder that persistence will only compound.

The Kagan's have made tens of thousands, fatten their asses, gotten their false glory and the friendship of the Bill Kristols of the world.

Andrew Bacevich gave his son for George Bush's disaster.

You tell me who is more admirable and who should be listened to.