I know that Americans can be an impatient bunch, but thinking the WOT in the short term is totally foolish. We need to think in terms of decades with multifaceted military and foreign policy aspects.
In terms of Iraq, yeah we've made mistakes. Welcome to war were mistakes cost lives rather than money. I don't like them, but the important thing is to learn from them and win. I'm fine with constructive criticism (Such as these) but am fed up with the 'woe is me' we're losing and need to get out attitude!
Look at history. In WWII we spent so much time preparing for DDay (and even it had many screw ups) that we failed to train for the hedgerows sitting right behind the beaches. I've been through that area. I took me about 2 hours (with many stops) driving from Omaha beach to St. Lo. It took the 29th ID almost two months. It was a terrible slog and cost many lives. Fortunately, our GIs did learn from their mistakes and adapted several effective tactics in the hedgerows, ultimately making significant advances against well trained German divisions. (this is just one example, there are plenty more)
We're adapting in Iraq - our troops need to be given the time to do so particularly given the fact they're dealing with a complex 'insurgency'. If we fail here, the consequences will be terrible. We must will AND WE WILL IF we have to fortitude to accept that we are at war and stop bitching and start looking for solutions!
To put it another way:
