It's tough trying to do a blog and write a decent op/ed for a paper(in 300 words or less), all while trying to do a full time job in a war zone.
I'm trying to write a letter to the opinions editor of the ASU Herald (who just happens to be fellow conservative Lutheran Andrew Wilson) about why a quick military withdraw would be so disastrous (the tentative title is "Genocide, and Nothing Less"... noticeable enough?). It's been awhile since I've used the ole "making a case for the conservative by attacking from the left" (anyone that supports actions to help Darfur that reads this and still wants a hasty withdraw from Iraq while still knowing the country's tiny ethnic minorities face genocide are officially hypocritical scumbags). Anyways, hopefully this will wind up in the ASU Herald:

Genocide, and Nothing Less
By Hunter Shumard

As a soldier serving in our armed forces, I don't pretend to know the magic answer to the question of how to defeat the insurgents and bring my fellow soldiers home to their families. I can offer no advice other than focus on embedding our soldiers inside the Iraqi Army to train them more, being the most promising of the Iraqi authorities, and also to remind the Iraq government that we cannot keep fighting the good fight forever. What I do know is that the idea to redeploy our forces 4-6 months from now is simply the most irresponsible act we could do. The lucky ones would be powerful leaders of the Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish groups that would gain more autonomous power over their areas. The losers? Just about everyone else, but the Assyrian ethnic group in the country stands out. If the country goes under, they will be yet another small minority left behind in a war-torn country to be ethnically cleansed. There search for evidence on this isn't hard to find, as we have withdrawn from Iraq hastily once before in the first Gulf War, and I guarantee you, as there wouldn't not be any real authority, not even a dictatorship, the mass graves will be larger this time around. To leave now would be accepting that genocide is in Iraq's fate. Genocide, and nothing less.
The history of a democratic Iraq has is still in it's infancy, and will be for a long, long time. We were foolish to think we can take a multi-ethnic, war-ravaged country ruled under dictatorships for decades and expect a spotless democracy to be made faster than ramen noodles. Every democracy takes decades to grow, including the mess our country was in it's first few years, complete with revolts and a civil war with a death toll that was much worse than Iraq's. We have forsaken Iraq once before. Let's not do it again.