They came from all over the country, from New England to Southern California, from Seattle to Miami. Some joined to serve their country, others to get money for college, still others to get out of a small town. But they all have one thing in common - they all died in furtherance of George W. Bush's crusade.
Gregory Unruh, 28, of Dickinson, Texas.
Michael Elledge, 41, of Brownsburg, Indiana.
Christopher Simpson, 23, of Hampton, Virginia.
Lerando Brown, 27, of Gulfport, Mississippi.
William O'Brien, 19, of Rice, Texas.
And it just keeps going on.
Four thousand Americans have now died in this stupid, useless war. From the phantom WMDs to the mythical al Qaeda connection to the propaganda drive to convince America that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, the war was launched with lies and a careful marketing campaign. From "Mission Accomplished" to endless "turning points" to the Surge™, it was continued with wishful thinking and delusion. All along, we have been told that victory is right around the corner, that it will take just three more months, six more months, one more year. All we need is patience.
We are told that advocating withdrawal somehow "emboldens the enemy" and that leaving Iraq would make more 9/11-level attacks inevitable. We must stay in Iraq, forever if needed, until something amorphous called "victory" is achieved regardless of how many corpses continue to pile up.
With the failure of the Surge™ to bring about any real political progress, our occupation of Iraq has devolved into an endless and bloody holding pattern. And so after five years, four thousand dead Americans and untold numbers of dead Iraqis, all the excuses for keeping the war going have now boiled down to a particularly ghoulish form of human sacrifice. We must continue to kill and maim to ensure that the killing and maiming up to now was not done in vain.
There is quite simply no end in sight.
Bush and Cheney keep on living in their serene little world, secure in the knowledge that thanks to careful screening, inconvenient facts will not get through. They are even kept safely far away from grieving families who might ask such awkward questions as "Why did my child have to die?" or "Why isn't Daddy coming home?"
They do not have to deal with the consequences of their actions. They can continue making the same speeches, spouting variations on "stay the course," rejecting dissent as disloyal or merely irrelevant, but the true impact of this war will be forever lost on them.
All they are trying to do now is run out the clock. After all, come next January 20, it all becomes someone else's problem.
Gregory Unruh, 28, of Dickinson, Texas.
Michael Elledge, 41, of Brownsburg, Indiana.
Christopher Simpson, 23, of Hampton, Virginia.
Lerando Brown, 27, of Gulfport, Mississippi.
William O'Brien, 19, of Rice, Texas.
And it just keeps going on.
Four thousand Americans have now died in this stupid, useless war. From the phantom WMDs to the mythical al Qaeda connection to the propaganda drive to convince America that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11, the war was launched with lies and a careful marketing campaign. From "Mission Accomplished" to endless "turning points" to the Surge™, it was continued with wishful thinking and delusion. All along, we have been told that victory is right around the corner, that it will take just three more months, six more months, one more year. All we need is patience.
We are told that advocating withdrawal somehow "emboldens the enemy" and that leaving Iraq would make more 9/11-level attacks inevitable. We must stay in Iraq, forever if needed, until something amorphous called "victory" is achieved regardless of how many corpses continue to pile up.
With the failure of the Surge™ to bring about any real political progress, our occupation of Iraq has devolved into an endless and bloody holding pattern. And so after five years, four thousand dead Americans and untold numbers of dead Iraqis, all the excuses for keeping the war going have now boiled down to a particularly ghoulish form of human sacrifice. We must continue to kill and maim to ensure that the killing and maiming up to now was not done in vain.
There is quite simply no end in sight.
Bush and Cheney keep on living in their serene little world, secure in the knowledge that thanks to careful screening, inconvenient facts will not get through. They are even kept safely far away from grieving families who might ask such awkward questions as "Why did my child have to die?" or "Why isn't Daddy coming home?"
They do not have to deal with the consequences of their actions. They can continue making the same speeches, spouting variations on "stay the course," rejecting dissent as disloyal or merely irrelevant, but the true impact of this war will be forever lost on them.
All they are trying to do now is run out the clock. After all, come next January 20, it all becomes someone else's problem.
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