Best Rebuttal to the "Conflicting Messages" Crap

Letter in the NYTimes letters about the war in Iraq:

Pararaph 2:

Our troops have firsthand experience in how the war is going, unfiltered by politics. They are perfectly capable of weighing conflicting messages in an election season. Maybe that is news to the political class that chose this war, particularly since few of its members served or have children in the military.