"Do you think the war would be going better if no Americans criticized it?"

Uh... yeah.

My lefty start-up page featured this article about "Americans" sending photos and messages to Iraqis:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6260189/

Apparently it is important to inspire the enemy in their carbomb campaign against a fledgling democratic gov't. Good job guys, Kerry and Fonda are proud of your efforts.

2x6 mentioned Abraham Lincoln earlier. There are many paralells between our current situation and what Lincoln faced:
- A hugely unpopular war
- The purpose of the war was not always clear - were the Union boys fighting and dying to liberate slaves? That was not a popular justification in the North, despite the obvious nobility of that effort now. Many reasons for the war; not everyone understood them or agreed with them.
- Lincoln had tons of brutal critics in the media.
- Generals like McClellan, who had fallen out of favor with the President, turned on him - criticizing specific war strategies in public.
- Lincoln faced an extremely bitter re-election campaign during the war, narrowly defeating McClellan (whew, wasn't that fortuitous?).

One thing that wasn't similar was the number of casualties. 60,000 dead in 3 days at Gettysburg, 20,000+ in one day at Antietam, the inhumanity of Sherman's campaign against civilians in the South, 600,000 dead in the end...

If you were alive and voting in the North back then, is there any doubt you would have hated Lincoln, too?

I cannot imagine the burden that man carried on his conscience.