The war in Iraq is not just a military quagmire. As the conflict continues to unravel and escalate and as the losses continue to mount, the war also becomes a psychological quagmire of sorts, as reported here by Shankar Vedantam of the Washington Post:
Iraq and the Danger of Psychological Entrapment
As Robert M. Gates appears this week at his Senate confirmation hearings for defense secretary, Wesleyan University psychologist Scott Plous sees a hidden trap. To understand it, take a little test.
Let’s say your elderly dad has a beloved car. Its reliability was legendary, but it has started to have problems. He gets one thing fixed, and something else goes wrong. Each fix doesn’t cost much, but they add up, and then the problems start to get bigger. Your dad is convinced the next repair will get the car as good as new. Would you advise him to pull the plug and get rid of the car?
Or consider this. A friend invests some money after getting a tip about a stock. The price soars, and your friend gains 10 percent overnight. He immediately doubles his investment. A week later, the thing tanks, and he is in the red. A month later, it dives again, and he has lost a quarter of his investment. Should he cut his losses and sell?
One more, and yes, these are all trick questions. A woman you care about falls in love. After many years of a happy relationship, the person she is with develops a vicious streak, starts smashing things and occasionally gives her a black eye. Would you tell her to walk out of the relationship?
The trick in all these questions is that when presented with such scenarios, it is easy for us to answer yes. Your dad should sell that car, your friend should save what money he can, and the person you care about should dump that abuser.
Every day, of course, when it comes to such decisions in our own lives, millions of people answer no.
The difference is because of a widespread phenomenon in human behavior known as entrapment. When you invest yourself in something, it is exceedingly difficult to discard your investment. What is devilish about entrapment is not just that it can result in ever greater losses, but that those losses get you ever more entrapped, because now you have even more invested. [full text]
Kmareka.com 
in 2003 i stood with others on the state house lawn holding signs and candles. i knew that the more good people we lost in iraq the harder it would be to admit we were on a bad road and needed to change direction. we cannot undo the harm by sending more soldiers in and watching more civilians die. we need to engage the rest of the world in organizing a plan to support iraq in forming a government they can live with and then step back. it’s not going to be our colony or base of operations or gas pump. we have to let go of that and work towards a peace plan that has the agreement of most of iraq and the surrounding nations. for that we need good leaders who can tell the truth to americans, even when it’s not politically expedient.