It says something about what the professional military is thinking. It's like they're saying, 'I thought these guys knew what they were doing.

This British guy makes a lot of good points.

If Kuwait grew carrots we wouldn't give a damn.

This is still a man's profession, with a lot of men who intellectually and emotionally have not accepted that the military could be women's work.

But on balance I'd say we had a net loss. Unfortunately, these other issues dominated that expose the US to charges of hypocrisy.

I think he has now bought himself some time to withdraw slowly. But that assumes everything goes as planned next year.