ARTICLE: Senior Army Officer Says it's Time to Leave Iraq, by Paul McLeary, Ares7/30/2009

While you always want to encourage skeptical internal viewpoints, outsiders--to include the press--need to keep such dissent in perspective--as in, it's never hard to locate significant and passionate desire within the military to move out. You never want to dampen that instinct, because it's a good one.

But you don't treat it like an all-powerful threshold either. Nobody likes to do rehab, but just treatin'-and-streetin' almost never works.

Gates is talking accelerating the withdrawl, but don't kid yourself about any complete quit. It will not happen for years, even as we go so low that our public perceives a "withdrawal."