'How soon we forget' is an old cliché but very apropos to the lead up to the Iraqi invasion on 20 March 2003.

In an article on the net entitled "The Expectant President," by "accidentalactivist," Craig Wiesner made the following observations on comments by the President:

"'We did not expect the Iraqi army, including the Republican Guard, to melt away in the way that it did.' For over a decade prior to invading Iraq, millions of leaflets were dropped by the United States across Iraq, urging the Iraqi military and police to shed their uniforms and go home once the invasion started. By doing so, and not fighting against coalition forces, these folks were told they would be welcomed later as part of the team building a new Iraq. How then, can President Bush say that no one expected the military to melt away when that is EXACTLY what we urged them to do?

According to reports from U.K. and U.S. forces, we dropped nearly 32 million leaflets in the run up to the invasion and after the CPA took charge. Dropping psy-ops (psychological operations) leaflets is a smart tried-and-true tactic, and probably saved countless lives during the invasion. Why then, after the relatively easy time we had during the invasion, did someone decide to completely disband the Iraqi army and police forces, after they had been promised jobs once the regime had fallen? Iraqi soldiers and police showed up in droves, asking where they should report for duty, and they were turned away. Hundreds of thousands of former military, police personnel, and civil servants were told that they were no longer welcome, could not have their old jobs back, and had to face the prospect of not being able to feed themselves or their families. No jobs, no health care, no dignity, and no hope. What else could anyone have expected but for many of these people to become insurgents?"

When you add this fiasco to the US encouraged Shiite rebellion that was ruthlessly put down by the Saddam Hussein forces, and the 10 year air bombing campaign that did not win a lot of friends in Iraq, and then the almost total destruction of the Iraqi economic infrastructure, how can anyone wonder why we are having so many troubles in Iraq.

The US is an occupying power who destroyed their nation. Iraq is no longer a nation but is dividing itself into ethnic regions and has already started a civil war.

It is estimated that there are as many as 20,000 insurgents in Iraq today. There simply are not enough Coalition troops to fight the hard core insurgents, keep the Shiite militias from killing Sunnis and then keep revenge killings at a low level.

We need another 150,000 US troops in Iraq. Unfortunately, this is out of the question. However, the request for 150,000 more Iraqi troops is an absolute necessity. The question is what kind of troops?

Stay the course is no long viable. Democracy for a nation that views religion and the state as one and the same was never possible. We need a major course correction to stop the sectarian violence and run off the foreigner fighters.

We need home grown and home based battalions in each ethnic region.

In Vietnam, and in most other world wide insurgencies, there were ethnic battalions for a given region. In Vietnam we had Cambodian battalions and Montagnard battalions, etc.

We need separate ethnic battalions in Iraq to protect their people. We need to bring back most of the former Iraq army and build a force that can defend their ethnic group. The Kurds already have their army. The Shiites dominate the current army and the Sunnis make up the largest part of the insurgents because they are unemployed, under constant threat from revenge killings and are the base of support of the foreign fighters.

The forgotten wars cannot change anything in Iraq and the US government needs to remember that the Shiites will always remember how we abandoned them.and many Iraqis and foreign actors remember how the US cut and ran in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia.

The Shiites are not friends of the US but are under the domination, or at least the influence, of Iran.

It seems that many in Iraq think killing Americans and causing chaos and instability in Iraq will influence the American elections as the terrorist did in Spain, Italy and now the UK. It is easy to see how they think they can wait, because the Americans will lose heart and cut and run as they have done so many times before.

If we are looking for an "honorable" way out of Iraq (what ever that means), remember the forgotten wars, build a balancing ethnic force in each region, and make sure that the Shiite dominated government understand that we still have 150,000 troops in Iraq (and control much of their finances) as we make them an offer they cannot refuse.