I cannot overstate the similarity between Colonel David Hackworth’s Brave Men novel and Mr. Auster’s article. Colonel Hackworth gave countless similar examples beginning in post-WWII Europe through Vietnam, all based on his personal experience as a soldier and commander; like Patton, he was a lucky, front line, extremely brave, brilliant commander. He wrote a manual that was required reading by following commanders, but by 1969 the political pullout was fully underway. I have not studied the Colonel’s strategies.

However, I think I do know one thing: you can’t fight someone else’s war against a powerful enemy. We attempted this in Korea and Vietnam, and we failed. We appear to be repeating the mistakes. We owe the Iraqi people nothing except our respect for their lives and way of life at least to the extent we respect our lives and way of life. We eliminated an extremely dangerous enemy in the person of Saddam Hussein; it is now up to the Iraqis to decide their way of life, as long as it does not threaten our way of life.

Thus, we need to get our men out and establish a base somewhere in the region with a strategic kill zone. If the Iraqis want to kill more of us and have us kill more of them, then we must be prepared to do it; but it would best if we did not lurch around like ducks in a shooting gallery, as Bush’s policy would have us do.