So we should figure out how to get out of Iraq, was the gist of Sen. Jim Webb's discussion on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos today. As Democrat Webb of Virginia put it, the actual war--defeating the pathetic Iraqi so-called government--ended soon after the U.S. went in. "Since then," what we've had, as Webb pointed out, is a "very contentious occupation"--which is draining our military resources, tying them mostly down in one place--the country of Iraq--and sidelining "our grander strategic interests," including the--what?--oh, yes--our economy.

A senator from each major party, if they're still major, was interviewed by Stephanopoulos, but if this was a mini-debate, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S. Carolina) wasn't even a close second in the back-and-forth. In face of the undeniable difficulties faced by the military, even in the most narrowly military terms, Graham argued that re-enlisting is strong, our military is strong, and we can't afford to "lose" an important battle, presumably Iraq, "in the war on terror." Even most GOP officeholders no longer call Iraq a 'war on terror' now. Graham also dragged Iran in by the head and shoulders, still a stalwart in the administration's rosy dream of expanding an illegal war of aggression farther in the Middle East.

Webb's discussion included some of the common sense we hear too little of on the Sunday talk shows, including his matter-of-fact comment that the people who brought us into Iraq "had no intention of leaving"--had no intention to leave, which is why they did not have plans in place for a good exit strategy--a recognition Webb also attributed to Gen. Zinni.

Webb also mildly brought up the point that you do not fight guerrillas by marching legions into nations, though he didn't put it that way. "These are mobile," he said of the terrorists--"international terrorists are mobile," not contained within the boundaries of one nation. Any active guerrilla types are out there moving around, while our troops are tied down in one nation, Iraq.

Speaking of GOP opposition to proposals of a new G.I. bill in Congress, Webb also said something else that needs pointing out more often: "There are people in the Pentagon who are seeing a GI Bill as affecting retention instead of rewarding service."

He's right, in spades. The war and the economy are tied together in a lethal embrace that will take them both under, in any win-loss scenario. And there are people--individuals in positions of privilege, themselves, who are well aware that the military can recruit more successfully when the economy is in dire straits. Webb, a combat veteran of Vietnam, did not put it that way, of course. What he said was that "people do not re-enlist because of Iraq." They re-enlist because they want to serve, because they like soldiering, because of patriotism.

But it's funny how few people in the current Congress, much less in the current administration, seem to remember that almost all the fathers (and uncles, great-uncles, etc) of the Boomer generation served in World War II. And hardly any of them came home to bring up their own sons in the military--even those who were career military themselves. Even George Herbert Walker Bush, decorated in WW2, did not. They did not come home looking for another war, though any alien (from another planet, not from another country) might infer otherwise from listening to the lucrative bellicosity of neocons on television always "looking for the next enemy."