As the U.S. tries to tentatively declare victory and head home, I believe what I came to believe back 2003, namely that Iraq will be better off in the end, but will remain a mess for the foreseeable future. And the price the U.S. paid, in lives, in money, in national prestige is one we would not have paid had we known the cost going in. And after all this, I have come to believe two things about the war right now: Iraq is not ready for U.S. troops to leave. And it is time for us to go.

Let’s be clear: WikiLeaks is an anti-privacy, anti-secrecy group, whose primary tenet is that nothing should be kept from the world, not military secrets, not sources or methods of intelligence gathering, not even the secret rituals of fraternities and sororities. WikiLeaks seems to me to to be functioning less in the tradition of good old-fashioned muckrakers, and more like anti-privacy terrorists.

It’s hard to see how the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan can keep his job, given his admitted “poor judgment” in publicly airing his misgivings about his dealings with President Obama and members of his administration, while fostering a command climate in which his “profane, irreverent aides” as the Washington Post described them, mocked Vice President Joe Biden.

Here’s what the president said last night: “We will fight this … with everything we’ve got for as long as it takes.” That’s a lot different from the stated strategy for Afghanistan which is more like: “We will fight this with as much as we can spare, for a least another year.”

I’m always amazed when really smart people think really dumb things. And I have to say that Professor Ackerman, no doubt possessed of great intellect, superior to mine, has displayed an amazing ability to overanalyze a nonproblem, and come to an illogical conclusion.

A U.S. military investigation delivered a scathingly critical assessment: showing not only how screw-ups can get innocent people killed, but also how the U.S. military really does take seriously the investigation of unintended civilian casualties. It does not simply write off the deaths of women, children, and other non-combatants as “collateral damage” –a term that has increasingly taken on an unwarranted pejorative tone, implying that U.S. forces are uncaring and unfeeling about the loss of innocent life.

I generally favor redundancy. I have a Mac AND a PC. More options are good. But the reality here is the U.S. taxpayers can’t afford an extra engine for the F-35 anymore that I can afford an extra engine for my Toyota.

While there was talk last month that perhaps the crash of a V-22 in Afghanistan would validate criticism of the notorious Osprey, LoD has learned the crash was NOT due to mechanical malfunction or hostile fire. A line of departure exclusive.

The more I hear about how much progress is being made in Afghanistan, the more concerned I become about the long-term prospects for success. So I’m looking forward to getting some firsthand insights from my partners at military​.com, who are heading to Afghanistan for a clear-eyed assessment of what’s really happening.

If the Reuters photographer was shooting the war from the insurgents’ perspective, he was taking his life in his hands, and he paid dearly for it. Read the investigation, before condemning this as an act of “collateral murder.”