Voting for McCain looks more & more palatable...

... not because I like McCain, but because I really don't want to foist this mess on either Democrat - it just seems too cruel!

Bush Given Iraq War Plan With a Steady Troop Level
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and THOM SHANKER, NYT
Published: March 25, 2008
WASHINGTON — Troop levels in Iraq would remain nearly the same through 2008 as at any time during five years of war, under plans presented to President Bush on Monday by the senior American commander and the top American diplomat in Iraq, senior administration and military officials said.

... and besides,

McCain says US succeeding in Iraq
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
24 March 2008
CHULA VISTA, Calif. - Fresh off his eighth Iraq visit, Sen. John McCain declared Monday that "we are succeeding" and said he wouldn't change course — even as the U.S. death toll rose to 4,000 and the war entered its sixth year.

Seeking source for basic military maxim ("Know your enemy") I came across a rich vein of military advice: Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

Here are a couple of gems:

II. WAGING WAR
2. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men's weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.

3. Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.

4. Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.

5. Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.

6. There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.
[emphasis added.]

Wonder if Rummy ever read this treatise, required of all U.S. military junior officers. Petraeus? Presumably, yes.

I note in passing that the most common figure recently cited regarding cost of the war is $600Bn. This is more than the cost cited by my favorite source, The National Priorities Project, which currently gives cost as $505Bn.

Stop the madness!