DAILY CASUALTY REPORT: Three more soldiers dead today. Horrible. Why does it feel worse to lose them one or two or three at a time than it does to lose, say, twenty, in a single battle?

This is the nation-building quagmire, yes, quagmire, that Bush spoke out against during the campaign. This is the no-win situation you end up in after you wage a successful conquest these days. Victories can be won in a week and then lost over a decade. I believed in this war, and I still believe in it, as much as you can believe in something like war. Still it feels awful, this post-war reconstruction or occupation or whatever it is, like a terminal disease creeping slowly through the system, shutting down one bodily function after another.

Look for major hand-wringing over end-game strategies in the weeks and months...and years?...to come. Let me be the first to say it: I have no idea what should come next.