Over the next few days here, as time permits, I plan to lay out my view of the war in Iraq. I have come to view the war as probably unwinnable, and the situation of American soldiers on the ground as painfully untenable.

A few important things to note before I begin.

First, these observations come secondhand; I'm nominally an infantry sergeant, but am currently parked at a not-very-interesting desk job in Kuwait. What I write here comes from what I've read, what I've observed at the periphery of the war, what I've experienced in training, and the discussions I've had with other soldiers who have been in Iraq.

To be clear about sources, a few of the military-themed blogs and websites I read regularly are John Robb's Global Guerillas, Phil Carter's Intel Dump, the anonymous Arms and Influence and Armchair Generalist, and the broader Defense and the National Interest, where I pay particularly close attention to the columns written by William Lind. Some of the books that inform my thinking about the institution of the U.S. Army and the nature of the war in Iraq are Sean Naylor's Not a Good Day to Die, a brilliant examination of Army politics and culture, Anthony Shadid's Night Draws Near, and Bernard Fall's Street Without Joy, which reported on the French war in Indochina. More generally, books that I have found useful on the topic of small wars include Brian McAllister Linn's The Philippine War and Elliott West's The Contested Plains. Another exceptionally important book, Ed Ayers' In the Presence of Mine Enemies, informs my understanding of the way that we manage the political meanings of war. Also influential: James Scott's Seeing Like a State and Lt. Col. John Nagl's Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife. Astute readers will note the absence of Noam Chomsky from this list.

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Second, anticipating the reaction of commentors, let me be very clear about what I don't intend to do here. I do not intend an attack on American soldiers. I do not intend a reflexive attack on President Bush, who I do not regard as"Chimpy McBushitler." I do not intend a Chomskyian, far-left assault on America.

Third, what I do intend is a critique based on, one, my imperfect and secondhand observations of fact, and, two, on a view that largely draws from the conservative political tradition. My discussion here is premised on a belief in the limited utility of state power, a rejection of state utopianism, and a desire to see government act with judiciousness and restraint. Experience suggests that some commentors will nevertheless turn what I write over the next few days into an America-hating Maoist assault on human decency, and that the name Michael Moore will appear at least once. This seems to be the state of our current discussion: Cindy Sheehan! Cindy Sheehan! (Oh yeah? Hitler Hitler Hitler!) It is abundantly strange that an unwavering faith in foreign adventurism and grand government-led social reformation -- and an unwavering fealty to the political personality at the head of the central government -- have somehow become" conservative" principles. But never mind.

Finally, the point of this discussion is not to tear down the American military or the current administration. I think that both have performed poorly in many ways -- but I also doubt very much that others could have avoided significant mistakes of their own, and I assume that leaders in both acted in good faith to do what they thought was best. The much-too-frequent, much-too-shrill rejection of critical discussion about the war that is so much in evidence in our polarized discussions, right now, suggests a view that all criticism is always merely a partisan attack. Everything I will say here I also have said in the army, in regular and friendly discussions with other soldiers who disagree. As a soldier, I talk every day with other soldiers who have an exceptionally wide range of views on the war; most are entirely open to the discussion, and deeply interested in sorting through the significance of the project to which they are committing so much of their lives. Critical discussion leads to correction, improvement, and stength. Soldiers get this point; witness, for example, the recent decision by the active duty editors of the U.S. Army-published Military Review to print a British officer's exceptionally sharp criticism of U.S. tactics in Iraq.

Everything that I will write here is offered in that spirit. The same instincts that led me to enlist in the military (and to go to grad school to study the history of my country) lead me to question our conduct of the current war in Iraq. I want to live in a prosperous, well-settled, and peaceful constitutional republic -- a republic that is fiercely but carefully defended, with modesty and restraint to balance its determination and strength. Call that whatever you want.

So here we go. I'll write, and post, as time permits.