Tragedy in the key of PPT

There is something unmistakably tragic about the case of Capt. Travis Patriquin, an American soldier serving in the rather violent Al Anbar province in Iraq.  Or rather, who served in Al Anbar; he was killed on the 13th by an improvised explosive device.  He was the author of a very simple Power Point presentation called "How to Win in Al Anbar," which has been making the rounds among troops (though apparently not the higher-ups) via email, and which was recently featured ABC's World News with Charles Gibson.

Part of the sense of tragedy, of pathos, comes from the reading of the Power Point document, with its simplicity and sincerity, but a big part comes from reading it while knowing that the possibility for a realistic solution to the Civil War in Iraq has come and gone, that the solution should have been a prevention, and that it should have been such three years ago.  A simple soldier knew it, and died for it.  And his death is just one among over a hundred thousand.

George Bush, with his spotty claim to military service and his inability to acknowledge the facts on the ground, by contrast, is pushing policy once more in adverse directions, preparing to increase the number of U.S. troops and hold multiparty talks that explicitly exclude Iran and Syria, despite the recommendations of the recent Iraq Study Group.