Too bad. A fatal blemish on what might have been the best speech by a liberal Democratic politician at the DNC. Barak implied that the real problem with launching an illegal and immoral war of aggression against Iraq was that the US did so without sufficent forces, a committment to 'win' and failed to garner international support. But Barak solemnly assures us, John Kerry would never do that.

( Never mind Dubya's outright lies about WMDs or Iraq's ficticious support for Al-Qaida, -- Obama reduces this to 'shading the truth' -- or the fact that Kerry and other Democratic leaders in Congress swallowed these tales whole, and voted for war )

A clear retreat from his earlier anti-war position in an effort to reimburse the Kerry campaign for the chance to bask in the national limelight and join the party anointed.

As for Tweed's assertion that 'There would have been more 'hand to hand' combat and not as many heavy bombing campaigns' -- that's simply absurd.

The Pentagon's overarching goals were to limit - and hide - both US combat deaths and visable 'collateral damage' to Iraqi civilians while inflicting maximum punishment on the Iraqi political, social and economic infrastructure; hence the use of massive 'precision' bombing. 'Hand to hand combat' never figured into the plan. But it never entered the neo-cons deluded thinking that when confronted with this kind of overwhelming firepower, average Iraqi fighters might cache their Semtex explosives and light weapons, ditch their own useless tanks and artillery, change clothes, head home and launch a guerilla insurgency instead.

However, Tweed's right about the eventual deployment of almost a half a million US troops in Iraq - which is what it will take to prop up the latest puppet regime we've installed. And John Kerry is likely to deliver...even if it means resorting to a draft in years to come. But even these numbers won't be sufficent to crush the Iraqi resistance to occupation.

The time to go is now. To paraphrase an earlier Democratic campaign slogan - "It's the war, stupid."