CHRISSIE HYNDE ISN’T ALONE:

Quite probably the worst thing about the inevitable and totally unjustifiable war with Iraq is that there’s no chance the U.S. might lose it. . . .

Someday, perhaps, we may grow out of our mindless, pimple-faced arrogance, but in the meantime, it might do us a ton of good to have our butts kicked. Unfortunately, like most of the targets we pick on, Iraq is much too weak to give us the thrashing our continuously overbearing behavior deserves.

Well, somebody should have their butts kicked, all right. There were people hoping we’d lose in Afghanistan. Now there are people who hope that we’ll lose in Iraq. And although they’ll probably howl over it, I don’t think it’s wrong to call them bad Americans. Because I think that if you root against your own country in a war, it raises justifiable doubts, to put it mildly, about your patriotism.

I guess I’m just old-fashioned that way.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

As a retired soldier, the thing that infuriates me when I hear comments hoping that America loses this war, is that wars are lost when our troops are killed instead of the other sides’. Yes, that’s a bit simplistic, but the only other way we could lose the war is if substantial numbers of civilians are killed and it becomes a public relations nightmare. In either case, we lose only if there is a high body count of our troops or Iraqi civilians, and that’s not the kind of thing I would hope for. Me, I hope we win, and do it quickly.

Yes, a swift American victory is pretty much the only outcome that doesn’t involve a lot of dead people. But the concern for preventing death is, for some of these folks, just an excuse. They really — as Ms. Hynde and Mr. Robbins are honest enough to admit, at least — just want America to lose.