No one abhors the loss of military more than me. I can understand your feeling these are "lives lost for nothing," but think that's somewhat harsh. The WMD issue has been discussed on other threads, and there's more to WMDs than the big box with "WMD" stenciled on it.

The real ones to place a value on the Iraqi/Afghani deployments are those who have been there placing "boots on the ground." I don't think too many would agree with the multiple-deployment situation due to force-size-versus-tasking, but on the human-to-human situation over there, and what has or has not been accomplished in other-than-philosophical terms.

Seeing things only through the eyes of the media, and hearing things only from those trying to sway opinion for their own gain, that makes it quite difficult to sort the "wheat" from the "chaff."

I want them home, too - but not at the price of having to go back in a decade or two at ten-times the cost. WWI led to WWII that way, and Korea occurred because of haste to demobilize. So, hopefully some downstream thought will be applied to the when-and-why, to include any preventive measures as appropriate.

Peace is always the goal - but a short-term lull to appease only provides a false sense of "peace" that inevitably has led to a worse confrontation downstream. So, how do we have a LASTING (more than three generations, at least) peace out of this so the kids and granddids of today's warriors don't find themselves cleaning up any leftover mess?