The idea of "The Win"

I've been thinking about this for a while. One of the major debate points of the last two debates has been the topic of Iraq vs Afghanistan. Obama wants to pull out of Iraq and focus on Afghanistan. McCain wants to "focus" on both. One of McCain's primary arguments for not pulling out of Iraq is the concept of letting the troops stay there till they win.

Till they win.

What does that mean? To me it seems like the definition of the win, has been a moving target. I've heard arguments ranging from stopping the proliferation of WMD's to establishing democracy. So what exactly is our goal there? When do we know we've won? When there aren't any terrorist bombings? When the Iraqi security forces are "ready"? When Democracy is secure? Is anyone else confused by the vagueness? I can understand the troops desire to "win" If ever there was a greater collection of hyper-competitive individuals I can't think of it. But if we don't give them a clear definition of win, can they win?

If they can't "win" will they ever feel closure? I doubt it.

I have this theory about PTSD. Why did we never hear about PTSD before Vietnam? It might be because of the generation thing, but I think it's because the vets believed in what they were doing. Vietnam, and Iraq are both wars where the soldiers are there without clearly understanding why. In fact, I would be interested in seeing the numbers on PTSD cases coming out of Afghanistan, where I believe the soldiers really went in with a clear definition of "the win," and Iraq. I'd be willing to bet that there are far fewer coming out of Afghanistan.

That being said, and after a lot of internal debates and conflict I've decided I support the idea of pulling out of Iraq based on the lack of the clear definition of the win, as well as the fact that we are the aggressors in this war and it is clearly an "un-holy" war.