An e-mail:

Dear Richard: Re your recent “Glimmers” postings on the corner. If it is true that adding this relatively small number of troops to Baghdad is significantly improving the situation there, can you please tell why in it has taken us so long to do this? For years now an ever increasing number of people have been practically yelling in frustration that more troops were necessary to give our vital Iraq project a chance of success. In response, our President and his political supporters have blandly repeated and repeated the line that we have all the troops we need and that the military has asked for, so no increase is called for. Now we are reading that out of desperation an increase in troop strength has been tried and is making significant progress. Of course maybe the people and articles you are referring to are being over optimistic, or maybe the positive effect will prove to be merely temporary; but if this is a real positive development, how is it not true that the people managing this war are guilty of negligence on such a scale that it boggles the mind for delaying this long? As someone who supported the war in the beginning and soured as so many others have in watching a project so important be bungled almost beyond belief, I can assure you that these reports of progress achieved by the simple and obvious step of increasing troop strength after 2 to 3 years of watching Bush, Rumsfeld, and company deny it would be helpful is certainly a bitter-sweet confirmation of the power of common sense over the assurances of political authority figures telling us what a good job they are doing.