New poll results released this week show that six out of ten Iraqis approve of attacks on US-led forces, that 79 percent of Iraqis say that the U.S. is having a negative influence on the situation in Iraq, with just 14 percent saying that it is having a positive influence.

Fifty-three percent said setting a timeline for withdrawal "would strengthen the government," while just 24 percent said it would weaken the government.

Asked what effect it would have "if U.S. led forces withdraw from Iraq in the next six months," 58 percent overall say that violence would decrease (35% a lot, 23% a little).

You want an analogy to what we are now doing in our illegal occupation of Iraq ? An analogy that draws from our own history ? An analogy that would be true with any occupied country ?

How about this letter from William Pitt to the House of Lords on November 18th, 1777.It's entitled An English Plea For Peace With The American Colonies ;

"My Lords, this ruinous and ignominious situation, where we cannot act with success, nor suffer with honour, calls upon us to remonstrate in the strongest and loudest language of truth, to rescue the ear of Majesty from the delusions which surround it.

You cannot, I venture to say, you CANNOT conquer America.

" What is your present situation there? We do not know the worst; but we know that in three campaigns we have done nothing and suffered much.

You may swell every expense, and strain every effort, still more extravagantly; accumulate every assistance you can beg or borrow; traffic and barter with every pitiful German Prince, that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign country: your efforts are forever vain and impotent-doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates to an incurable resentment the minds of your enemies, to overrun them with the sordid sons of rapine and of plunder, devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty!

If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms! -Never! Never! Never! "

And the Iraqi's will not lay down their arms for that very same reason ~ regardless of the wishful thinking and spin of the Cheney/Bush administration.Iraq is George Bush's waterloo and he is already dragging all of us with him into this black hole of deceit, hubris, humiliation and heartache.

Allen L Roland