I'm not quite sure how to take this. I never reprint e-mails that I receive but since this one is 90% my own words, I don't see the harm. Today, I got an e-mail for Charles Hurt, a NY Post columnist and he sent me back an e-mail that I had sent him during the 2008 election. He wrote, "Was going through old emails and found this one. I thought you might find it of interest today."

My original e-mail:

You summed up your "Bracelet" article with:
"Here lies the difference between these two men:
Obama will accept defeat if continuing on hurts too much. For McCain, any mission where defeat is an option is a mission not worth fighting in the first place."
So isn't the Iraq war one of those missions McCain wouldn't have wanted to fight? If the goal of the war is to set up a stable democracy in the Middle East, does anyone really believe that Iraq government is going to last if we leave (which is what Iraq's new government is now calling for)? Or that the person that is elected isn't going to turn out to be another Chavez or Morales?
The problem is that this isn't a war anymore, it's an occupation. And we're trying to set up a democracy in a part of the world that won't adhere to the separation of church and state and in which the government usually can't control large portions of the country. How can we know if defeat is an option if we barely even know how to define success?

The original article can be found here. I'm not sure why I would find my original e-mail interesting. The Iraq government is STILL calling for us to leave. Violent militia groups are starting to get their foot in the door, led by anti-American Muqtada al Sadr. The only reason I even want to feign confidence in Iraq is so we can get our soldiers out of there. Does anyone really believe that an anti-American voice won't soon take control of the country once we're out? We're leaving behind a new government but the same lousy economy and arguably even worse public services. I'd say that odds are that we're going to see a backlash much like the mid-term elections except I doubt that the militias will rely on ballots to get their point across. And if liberals thought American conservatives were out there...

I e-mailed Charles back and hopefully I can get some clarification on what I was supposed to take as interesting but I can't say that my fears have been allayed at all.