I have heard all the arguments before. In six years the left went from fake concern about Iraqi civilians to whining about the monetary cost of the war – whatever works at the time. I have no respect for them. And many of them were happy to accuse the troops they pretend to care about. I´m not forgetting that, ever.

Nobody is taking our casualties lightly. But you would have made sure they were in vain. Having created the first representative government in an Arab nation is huge. Best thing we could do given the situation, your precious emotions notwithstanding.

The point of timetables was to hamper the ability to prosecute the war, forestall a good outcome and hang the resultant failure around the neck of the Bush administration. It was not constructive and was not meant to be. Demanding capitulation (in front of the whole world!) while the war is undecided and soldiers are fighting means undermining the war effort and probably got people killed. If the Dems had gotten their way, it would have been a real catastrophe. And you obviously don´t give a damn. Which tells me all I need to know about you.

And what do you mean by strawmen? That´s a sizeable part of the Democrat base.

If you had any arguments, you wouldn´t flee into personal insults at the first sign of trouble. You can only pull that off once.

I encourage you to join all those gun nuts, survivalists, Posse Comitatus, Aryan Nation, NeoCons, and your fellow travelers to go and hunker down in the bunker to await the aftermath. Do not sleep. Stay on watch until the rice and beans run out. Might want to stock up on a few more textbooks for Junior and Juniorette. Knock yourself out.

Unlike the last japanese soldier on a nameless South Pacific rock, we will not be sending out search parties to bring you back.

House majority whip James Clyburn said around the beginning of the surge that success in Iraq "would be very bad for us". He was right. Democrats had got themselves in a position where they were deeply invested in failure. Do you not remember the endless talk of "we´ve lost", timetables for withdrawal and so on, which all but signalled to our enemies: "Keep at it, you´re winning"? And don´t call it a democratic debate. Having voted for the war, they didn´t make a single constructive suggestion. Needless to say, they endangered the lives of our soldiers.

And that is just elected politicans. You will not tell me that their rabid base – like code pink, moveon.org and the fanatics at Kos – were concerned patriots caring about the best outcome for our soldiers, America or Iraq, never mind victory. They could not contain their glee over bad news. Of course, there have not been many bad news for almost two years now. Only Obama can still screw this up.