You call this winning?

Ollie North, who should be rotting in jail himself for war crimes he commited during Iran-Contra, says we're winning in Iraq. Ollie offers up a heart warming little story from Ramadi about one girl's school, in one neighborhood that operates in defiance of "terrorist" threats. Not to diminish or criticize this accomplishment -- it's a big one in a way -- but it's also one small school, in one neighborhood, in a city of 400,000 people.

As the U.S. Marine corporal in charge of this little operation puts it, we can consider the war won "when these people don't need me to guard this street so their kids can go to school -- when they can do it themselves." I have to ask, just how many lifetimes will that take, when three years later they need our help to make this one small thing happen? The minute we leave, the school would close again. And how many troops would need to be in Baghdad, with a population of 5,948,800, before women can leave their homes in western dress and drive their cars again -- as they could before we invaded? Are we to commit almost our entire military to protecting the Iraqis from themselves for the foreseeable future?

And who will protect US citizens if the war comes unexpectedly to our shores?