Thank you Potter for sharing these thoughts (spot on, on all counts!).

Had I the typing fingers and the patience I would have typed out more of it here.

Thank you again OCP.

Mailer on Iraq, approximate transcript:
I’m worried we’re starting something we can’t finish without changing the nature of American democracy by the time we’re done … democracy is a grace … you don’t us a tank to crush a bumble bee … when you start thinking about what the real motivations were … part of what they were doing it for was to get a complete grasp on the middle east, a stranglehold on the middle east, and the ignorance there, the arrogance, the fundamental assumption, that that was there to do, that that was doable, that the lack of respect for Islam in a funny way, but when a religion becomes embattled it turns ugly, it does create terrorist. The more successful we are in the middle east, the more there is going to be a powerful fringe of militants who will keep doing their best to wreck it. Finally, if Islam is going to end up with any kind vis-à-vis with us, it’s going to be because we withdraw. The problem now is [has?] not been how do we work it out. The problem is how do we withdraw without creating an even larger mess. And that may take a couple of years. That’s the worst of it all. Is it may take two terrible years. Which we did in Vietnam after all. And it isn’t the end of America by the way … we’re still the most powerful country in the world. We’re still the most extraordinary country in the world … we learn much more from failure than from victory … failure is one’s lifeblood, the character is founded on the ability to learn more from failure than other people do.