Austin Bay, the brilliant blogger-novelist-officer, had this to say in the Weekly Standard about the war in Iraq in December 2002 — yes, I said 2002: “Pity Gen. Tommy Franks or, for that matter, any American military commander tasked with overseeing a post-Saddam Baghdad. For in that amorphous, dicey phase the Pentagon calls ‘war termination’ … U.S. and allied forces liberating Iraq will attempt — more or less simultaneously — to end combat operations, cork public passions, disarm Iraqi battalions, bury the dead, generate electricity, pump potable water, bring law out of embittering lawlessness, empty jails of political prisoners, pack jails with criminals, turn armed partisans into peaceful citizens, re-arm local cops who were once enemy infantry, shoot terrorists, thwart chiselers, carpetbaggers and black-marketeers, fix sewers, feed refugees, patch potholes and get trash trucks rolling, and accomplish all this under the lidless gaze of Peter Jennings and Al Jazeera.”

Peter Jennings is gone. The rest remains. And yet, despite the validity of his prediction, Bay remains as steadfast a supporter of the reasons for and efforts in Iraq as anyone in America. What a guy.