Question: "If we are forced to pull out of Iraq, after AQ shifts their main effort to Afghanistan, when will the calls come to pull out of Afghanistan as well?" -- RtWingNtCase

Answer: If we pulled completely out of Iraq, say in early 2008, you'd start seeing a slow, but steadily rising trickle of liberal bloggers and activists calling for us to leave Afghanistan, too.

Then, after the 2008 election, you'd start seeing small, but significant numbers of Democratic politicians demanding that we end the "occupation" of Afghanistan. I'm guessing that by, oh, say, late 2009, you'd have about half of the Democrats in Congress wanting to leave.

Now, you may think, "No way, Hawkins! These Democratic Presidential contenders are telling people that Afghanistan is where the real war on terror is being fought. They're not going to flip right around on that!"

Uh-huh.

In 2003, John Kerry, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton were all gung-ho about invading Iraq. Now, listen to them today when they talk about the war that they voted for and supported (cough, cough, until it became more politically beneficial to them to oppose it, cough, cough) in Congress.

If Iraq were to be taken off their plate, they'd do the same thing in Afghanistan that they want to do in Iraq. The liberals can't help it. It's their nature.