Where do we go from here?

Meriting attention today are a couple of NY Times letters to the editor published yesterday in response to Frank Rich's August 14 column, "Someone Tell the President the War Is Over":

Sheila R., Middletown, R.I. said (excerpt):

I never agreed with this war, but we are there. So wouldn't it be wrong to pull up and move out, and leave Iraq in such a fragile state? Wouldn't it set back any agenda we had to bring democracy to the Middle East (the only possible justification for this war that ever made sense to me, and even then, thin as a rationale)? What does it do to the United States' standing in the world not to clean up the mess we created?

The only solace I can find in this situation is that we did precisely this in Vietnam, and the nightmare scenario that the hawks predicted then - the "domino effect" - never occurred. In fact, eventually, Vietnam drew itself out of distress. Is there anything we can learn from that?

Nancy H., Newcastle, Me. (excerpt):

What will be most memorable about this war is that most Americans, especially those who supported it, did not serve.