After a three-month-long kidnapping, Jill Carroll is free!

With the release of Jill Carroll and the rescue of Kember, Loney and Sooden, there is hope that we can win the war in Iraq. If you are in bookstore, read Max Boot's "Guess What? We're Winning" in American Interest. In the age of microelectronics, 24/7 news, reality tv, robotics, sci-fi, and video games, people seems to want instantaneous victories like they want instant fixes. Well, wars take time to win. Max Boot made some good points about American history in warfare. In terms of defeats, U.S.A. failed miserably when it tried invading Canada in 1776 and 1812. In terms of humiliations, the US military suffered far greater losses in Litte Big Horn, Pearl Harbor and the fall of the Philippines. In terms of soldiers dead, the Second World War and the Vietnam War were far more deadly. The bottom line: Insurgents in Iraq are really more gangs than revolutionaries, more diverse (Sunni Ba'ath party remnants; Sunni al Qaeda; Shiites) than unified, and generally without a central leader (like Ho in North Vietnam or Mao in China or Massood in Afghanistan). The U.S. Army can win this war in Iraq.