Ray, with all due respect, the United States is not a military oligarchy. There is no requirement in the constitution that its leaders be culled from the military. Furthermore, for at least half of its history, there was--and is--no draft.

Therefore, your ranting and raving that U.S. leaders must be veterans in order to command to serve as president in a time of war is without either precedence or logic. It also means the only person you can legitimately support in this election is John McCain.

As for the "the violence is to repel invaders" argument, I thought most of the violence was the result of a "civil war" between competing factions of the Iraqi nation: Shiite, Sunni and Kurd. That's why Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer, among other democrats, advocated partitioning the country earlier this year.

Finally, I don't think you can keep calling it a "stay the course" strategy any more, given that the surge was, in fact, a change of course.