Why fight when it is so purposless your leader commits suicide?

From Editor & Publisher we get the story of 2nd Platoon, Charlie 1-26 when they hit the wall in Iraq and simply can no longer perform the mission.

Iraq is a war without any purpose for Americans. Here is a sample of stories.

• IRAQ: US Army 'stretched to breaking point'
• A failure in generalship
• How the US Army's being worn down in Iraq
• Study: Army Stretched to Breaking Point
• America suffers an epidemic of suicides among traumatised army veterans

From the article above titled "A Failure of Generalship" we get this description of war

Armies do not fight wars; nations fight wars. War is not a mili¬tary activity conducted by soldiers, but rather a social activity that involves entire nations. Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz noted that passion, probability and policy each play their role in war. Any understanding of war that ignores one of these elements is fundamentally flawed.

The passion of the people is necessary to endure the sacrifices inherent in war. Regardless of the system of government, the people supply the blood and treasure required to prose¬cute war. The statesman must stir these passions to a level commensurate with the popular sacrifices required. When the ends of policy are small, the statesman can prosecute a conflict without asking the public for great sacrifice. Global conflicts such as World War II require the full mobilization of entire societies to provide the men and materiel necessary for the successful prosecution of war. The greatest error the statesman can make is to commit his nation to a great conflict without mobilizing popular passions to a level commensurate with the stakes of the conflict.

The problem with the occupation of Iraq is that Bush and his minions never offered a real reason to fight the war they started in Iraq. The Bush people had to be dragged into Afghanistan after 9/11 and there was, and remains, popular support for the war in Afghanistan. But Iraq?

America lost the war in Vietnam because the nation was not involved in it. Vietnam had no meaning to most of the American nation. The occupation of Iraq is even worse. Every so-called reason America was given to invade Iraq fell apart as soon as it was looked at closely. It is a tribute to the professionalism of the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps that they have gone to Iraq and done what was demanded of them with inadequate equipment, incompetent White House leadership, increased tours, and no valid reason to fight there except professionalism. The Reserves and National Guard have substituted for a draft because of the utter incompetence of the Bush administration.

Five years is enough. Bring them home. Bring them ALL home. Quit making American soldiers die in the misbegotten Republican Party's War.

They've done enough, ten times over and more. It's time to quit.