We don't want Favre! He's about the only guy out there as old as McCain, and having him around would just take valuable playing time away from Jackson, who is the future.

Now, for the rest. First, thanks for being the first to actually state some measurable, verifiable goals to acheive. I am sure the generals would love to have such concrete goals to reach, instead of some vague "stay the course" or "we'll stand down when the Iraqis stand up" rhetoric. The American people certainly would appreciate it too.

We have spent billions of dollars and 5 years trying to reach those goals in a generic sense, and we have failed to bring the Iraqis back to even a pre-war level in many areas, such as water and electricity availability in Baghdad. My feeling is that part of this is due to Iraqi corruption, American contractor incompetence and corruption, and an open-ended committment by the US to stay as long as we feel like it. At some point, we have to be willing to take the training wheels off and tell the Iraqis that they aren't going to get any stronger if they don't actually take on the responsibilities for themselves.

The reason given by the administration for the surge was that we needed to give the Iraqi government breathing space for political and sectarian reconciliation. None of that has happened, and probably won't. Those aren't my words, those are the words of Ayad Allawi, who was the first post-war leader of Iraq. It's great that the violence has decreased, but that wasn't the stated goal of the surge in the first place. I used an analogy a couple of days ago that I think describes the situation. A guy goes to the doctor and the doctor says he has cancer. The doctor admits the man to the hospital, because he says the guy will die without cancer treatment. Weeks of treatment go by, and at the end, the doctor gives the guy the good news that he's cured the guy's heart disease. "Heart disease? I didn't even know I had that. But what about the cancer?" "Well", the doctor replies, "I couldn't really do anything about that, but at least now you won't die of heart disease". We are the doctor, and the Iraqis are the dying patient. We took care of the violence for the time being, but it is a bandaid, not a cure. What is the cure? Probably a civil war, sad to say. Our guys are just referees caught in the middle right now. When they leave, the war will start. If the only way we can stop the war is to keep 150,000 troops there, then that is unacceptable. We have more vital needs in Afghanistan right now, and as long as we keep this level of troops in Iraq, we don't have reinforcements to send to Afghanistan. That's what the head of the Joint Chiefs, Adm. Mullen says, and I will take him at his word. Not only can't we send troops to Afghanistan, we can't send them anywhere else should they be needed. Is it worth it to stay in Iraq if it ties us down so badly? Not in my mind.