I'm trying to remember the last time I saw this much passion from Kevin Drum, outside of Friday cat-blogging:

...[McCain] just doesn't get the Catch-22: he wants Iraq to become Okinawa Jr., but as long as we're there the violence is never going to stop and Iraq will stay Iraq. Casualties will never be reduced to zero.

And there's a broader question anyway: even if casualties did drop to zero, would we really want a long-term neocolonial presence in Iraq anyway? Why? To protect the oil? That was pumping just fine before we were there. To fight al-Qaeda? They're in Pakistan. To ensure a presence in the area? We already have bases in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and elsewhere. How the hell many do we need?